






LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

\W ftz 2_- 

Coiigrigljl Ijta. 

Slielf Y 3 


UNITED STATES OE AMERICA. 













































LC Control Number 


tmp96 025708 





































Feeding on Chris 


THE SOUL’S HUNGERING AND THIRSTING, 


AND ITS 


SATISFACTION. 


BY THE 

Rev. W. P. BREED, D. D., 


AUTHOR OF 

“ CHRIST LIVETH IN ME,” “jENNY GEDDES,” “UNDER THE OAK,” ETC. 




PHILADELPHIA ! 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION, 
No. 1334 CHESTNUT STREET. 





T3 V> % 3 
-13 13 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, by 

THE TRUSTEES OF THE 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 


Westcott & Thomson, 
Stereotypers and Electrotypers, Philada. 





ARE THEY WHICH DO 


HUNGER AND THIRST AFTER RIGHTEOUSNESS; 


FOR THEY 


SHALL BE FILLED 








■ 


































CONTENTS 


PAGE 

The Mountain-Crest. 7 

The Craving. 15 

The Object of the Craving. 16 

The Seat of the Craving. 28 

The Satisfaction. 32 

The Food. 37 

Christ as the Soul’s Food.. 58 

Christ the Only Food of the Renewed Nature. 83 

The Supply Abundant.,. 87 

The Christ-Food Accessible. 92 

The Christ-Food Satisfying. 96 

The Welcome. 100 

Feeding on Christ. 106 

Filled with Christ.. 131 

How may this Fullness be Mine?. 162 

How may this Appetite be Mine?. 183 

The Joy of Feeding on Christ. 199 

& 

















































Feeding on Christ. 


THE MOUNTAIN-CREST. 

ROM a certain point in Switzerland two 



narrow, deep-cut, steep-sided beautiful 
valleys diverge, enclosing between them a 
huge mountain-mass. One of these valleys 
brings the tourist in the course of seven 
or eight miles to the spot where the Dust- 
Brook, the Lauterbrunnen, leaps down near¬ 
ly a thousand feet in snow-white knots, that 
like spirits of the waterfall chase each other 
through the air, and ere they reach the 
earth vanish into spray. The other valley 
conducts you to the glacier of Grindenwald. 
If now from either valley, at either of these 


7 




8 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


points, you climb the steep, sometimes pre¬ 
cipitous, sides of the intervening mountain, 
you may stand at length on the very crest 
where the melting snows impartially divide 
their waters, sending these to the right, 
those to the left — at one time creeping, 
at another leaping, toward the valleys on 
either hand, through them to flow away 
to the distant sea. 

And now beneath your eye, even in mid¬ 
summer, lie large patches of snow which 
have resisted all the power of the sun¬ 
beams, and yet, strange to say, have not 
arrested the growth of many beautiful and 
delicate flowers. There may be seen the 
gentian mantled in its matchless blue; 
and there too, not only around the snow, 
but also coming up often through its chilly 
whiteness, that lovely little flower of which 
Ruskin in his Modern Painters , with graphic 
beauty of style, thus writes: “ Passing to 
the edge of the snow, we find, as we are 
nearly sure to find, two or three little round 


THE MOUNTAIN-CREST 


9 


openings pierced in it, and through these 
emergent a slender, pensive, fragile flower 
(Soldanella alpina), whose small, dark pur¬ 
ple-fringed bell hangs down and shudders 
over the icy cleft that it has cloven, as if 
partly wondering at its own recent grave, 
and partly dying of very fatigue after its 
hard-won victory.” 

And then, as if God delighted in con¬ 
trasts, the stupendous proportions of the 
Jungfrau, white as if folded under an an¬ 
gel’s wing, and more than twelve thousand 
feet above the level of the sea, meet your lift¬ 
ed eye. And near by the Monch raises his 
gigantic form; and next the Gross Eiger, 
the great giant, thousands of feet across 
the base, and thousands of feet up to those 
splintered pinnacles that seem to pierce the 
sky—a bold, sheer, precipitous, cathedral- 
facade such as only God knows how to 
build. 

But if moral things are greater than 
physical, and religious things greater than 


10 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


the merely moral, and the high spiritualities 
of religion greatest of all, then, standing on 
the Mount of Beatitudes, and upon this 
beatitude— Blessed are they which do hunger 
and thirst after righteousness ; for they shall 
be filled —that forms the very crest of the 
mount, we are farther up toward the stars, 
farther away from the marshy low-grounds, 
farther from the miasmatic hollows of com¬ 
mon life, and face to face with richer beau¬ 
ties and loftier grandeurs than when stand¬ 
ing on the loftiest ridge of the Wengern Alp. 

In this beatitude we have a hungering 
and thirsting after righteousness, and over 
against the appetite an abundant supply 
of the desired food. Here are aspirations 
as pure and lofty as are possible to man, 
and an inexhaustible supply of the food for 
which he sighs. Surely here, if anywhere, 
we are among the mountains! For the 
pulpit from which this matchless sermon 
was preached, and the cathedral in which 
the thronging multitudes listened to the 


THE MOUNTAIN-CREST. 


II 


voice of the divine Teacher, was a moun¬ 
tain-top. And the sermon itself so com¬ 
bines all that formed the essence of relig¬ 
ion under the old dispensation, and all that 
forms its substance and its soul under the 
new, that we may not unaptly liken it to a 
mountain loftier than Zion, loftier than 
Sinai, loftier than the one piled upon the 
other. And, with all these physical and 
moral grandeurs and sublimities, the Preach¬ 
er’s imperial majesty, dignity and authority 
fully harmonize. There must have been in 
the tone and manner of Jesus while deliver¬ 
ing this discourse something that not only 
arrested the attention, but also startled the 
Jewish mind; something that evoked thoughts 
of the old prophets, of Moses, of Elijah; 
something that suggested the presence 
of a Reformer and the early advent of a 
reformation. For we are told at the close 
that the people were astonished at his 
doctrine, for he taught them as one hav¬ 
ing authority, and not as the Scribes. 


12 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


And if in this discourse we pass from 
the sublimely authoritative tone of the 
speaker to the matter of his teaching, we 
shall find no abatement of our interest and 
admiration. This “sermon” opens with sev¬ 
en masterly strokes which outline the great 
principles of the kingdom, as they operate 
both in the wide world without and in the 
individual heart within. We say seven , be¬ 
cause, in fact, while the word blessed is ut¬ 
tered more than seven times, yet the beati¬ 
tudes sketch no more than seven frames of 
mind or styles of character. The two be¬ 
atitudes that follow are addressed to those 
who, having shown one or all of the cha¬ 
racteristics previously given, have become 
in consequence the victims of persecution. 
The Master assures all such that they 
are blessed, not only in despite of the 
abuse outpoured upon them, but also by 
reason of it. 

We are tempted to regard it as more 
than a mere fancy that these beatitudes 


THE MOUNTAIN-CREST. 


13 


constitute, as it were, a mount upon a 
mount; and that this fourth beatitude, 
“ Blessed are they which do hunger and 
thirst after righteousness,” is the crest of 
this mount upon a mount; for, as the 
fourth of seven, it is a central one with 
three on either side—the crest overtop¬ 
ping two acclivities. At the bottom of 
this mount on one side are the poor in 
spirit; and answering to these on the 
other side the peacemakers. Next above 
these on the one side are the mourners; 
and on the other the pure in heart. Then 
come on the one side the meek; and on 
the other the merciful. Then come the 
hungering and thirsting after'righteousness, 
after full conformity with God in thought, 
word and deed—a righteousness which in 
its fullness will make them all these togeth¬ 
er, and that too in the highest degree 
—profoundly poor in spirit; ardent, warm¬ 
hearted peacemakers; mourners deeply 
penitent; glowingly pure in heart; meek 


14 FEEDING ON CHRIST. 

with all meekness, and merciful with all 
mercy! 

In the prizes pledged to these various 
frames of mind and phases of character 
there seems to be a similar gradation, in 
obvious harmony with the figure of a hill, 
its two sides meeting at the summit. For 
these on the one side obtain the kingdom 
of heaven, those on the other the name 
of children; these have comfort, and those 
the vision of God; these inherit the earth, 
and those obtain mercy. Then between 
these two acclivities we find those who 
are filled with righteousness; and right 
sure may we be that they who are filled 
with righteousness lack neither the king¬ 
dom of heaven nor the name of children; 
neither any comfort God’s Spirit can be¬ 
stow nor any vision of God he can show; 
neither inheritance of the earth nor abound¬ 
ing mercy. For to those who are filled with 
righteousness most directly and emphati¬ 
cally comes the assurance, “All things are 


THE CRAVING. 


15 

yours: whether Paul, or Apollos, or Ce¬ 
phas, or the world, or life, or death, or 
things present, or things to come; all are 
yours; and ye are Christ’s; and Christ 
is God’s.” 1 Cor. iii. 21-23. 

And now, as the eye ranges along the 
sparkling crest of this Hill of Beatitudes, it 
fastens on two principal objects—a con¬ 
dition and a promise; a frame of mind 
and a blessing; a hungering and a filling; 
a craving and a satisfaction. 


THE CRAVING. 

The two leading appetites of the animal 
nature are here combined to express a long¬ 
ing of the spiritual. This longing is not a 
hungering merely nor a thirsting merely, 
but a hungering and thirsting. Here again, 
as so often in Scripture, we recognize the 
world-wide scope and comprehensiveness 
of our holy religion. There is no sim- 



1 6 FEEDING ON CHRIST. 

plicity of childhood or depth of ignorance, 
no loftiness of pride or reach of learning, 
but has a clear knowledge of the meaning 
of these words—hunger and thirst; and 
just as widely as this knowledge reaches, 
so widely does this beatitude extend its 
proffer of satisfaction. Whoever of you, 
in all the world, know by experience what 
it is to hunger and thirst after righteous¬ 
ness, shall be filled. 


THE OBJECT OF THE CRAVING. 

The one object of this twin craving is 
righteousness. For the precise meaning 
of this Scripture term we must of course 
resort to the Scriptures. In one connec¬ 
tion or another it occurs in those pages 
hundreds of times. Still, whatever phases 
of meaning the word may have here and 
there, there are only two that any compe¬ 
tent interpreter of the sacred Book would 



THE OBJECT OF THE CRA VING. 


17 


su gg es t as indicated by it in this beatitude. 
These are, first, an external righteousness, 
and, second, a righteousness that is inter¬ 
nal —a righteousness belonging to one, 
and yet available for another, and a right¬ 
eousness inherent and available for him 
whose it is. 

The first of these is illustrated in an 
oft-mentioned incident in Grecian history. 
A young man stood in court convicted of 
a certain crime, and about to be sentenced 
for it. Before the sentence had been pro¬ 
nounced a stir arose among the spectators, 
and all eyes glanced inquiringly for the 
cause. It was soon disclosed. A brother 
of the condemned one was making his 
way to the bar of the court, and ere long 
he stood in the presence of them all, hold¬ 
ing up an arm without any hand upon it. 
No word did he utter. There was no 
need. All knew who that intruder was, 
and where that lacking hand had been left. 
All knew that the sword of the foe had cut 


18 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


it off while it was dealing patriotic blows 
in battle for his country. The crowd was 
moved, the judges were moved; and with¬ 
out hesitation they deliberately set the 
heroic patriotism of that man over to the 
account of the guilty one, and because of 
this merit released the prisoner from the 
grasp of the law. Thus, the guilty one, by 
virtue of a merit which did not belong 
to him, received both liberty and life. 

The gospel bearing of this illustration is 
seen even by the Christian child. We were 
standing before the bar of the omniscient, 
all-holy Judge, who is “of purer eyes than 
to behold evil,” who cannot “look upon in¬ 
iquity,” and who “will by no means clear 
the guilty.” Under the scrutiny of the 
Judge we were seen to be guilty—guilty 
of a deep depravity of nature, of a “ heart 
deceitful above all things and desperately 
wicked;” guilty of an active hostility against 
God, a carnal heart-enmity against God; 
guilty of innumerable transgressions, for 


THE OBJECT OF THE CRA VING. 


*9 


our iniquities had gone over our head. We 
had sinned and committed iniquity, and re¬ 
belled even by departing from God’s pre¬ 
cepts and his judgments; and we were 
actually under condemnation, condemned 
already,—when a stir arose in court; a 
brother, our Elder Brother, made his way 
to the bar, and then held up, not a hand¬ 
less arm, but two pierced hands; and he 
stood on two pierced feet, and his side 
was pierced with a ghastly wound, and his 
blood covered him. He had come from 
the garden, where, being in agony, he 
prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was, 
as it were, great drops of blood falling 
down to the ground. He had come from 
the crowning, where Earth had hung 
upon his head those fruits of the fall, the 
briers and the thorns. He had come from 
the scourging, where the lashes had laid 
his flesh bare; and from Golgotha, where 
he had drunk the cup of gall and vine¬ 
gar, of insult, mockery and death. “His 


20 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


visage was so marred more than any man, 
and his form more than the sons of men 
and as he stood there in that piteous guise 
the court deliberately took the merit and 
the woes of that guiltless Elder Brother 
and set them over to the account of us 
guilty ones, and thus set us free from 
condemnation for evermore! Thus, as 
Chalmers writes, “ There was a ransom 
found out by God. There was a surety 
accepted by God. There was a satisfac¬ 
tion which that surety rendered. There 
was an obedience undertaken for us by 
One who inhabited eternity, and with this 
obedience God was well pleased. There 
was a virtue which shone in spotless lus¬ 
tre even to his pure, penetrating eye; and 
a merit which not only met the demand of 
his holy law, but also magnified that law 
and made it honorable. And all this apart 
from any obedience of ours. All this the 
produce of a transaction in which we had 
no share. All this a treasure existing in 


THE OBJECT OF THE CRA VING. 


21 


the repositories of that place where the 
Father and the Son hold their ineffable 
communion; a righteousness, not render¬ 
ed by us, but rendered to us.” 

Thus, by virtue of a righteousness out¬ 
side of ourselves, a merit in no sense or 
degree of our own acquiring, we are for 
ever liberated from the condemning power 
of the law, and clad with merit to be re¬ 
warded with eternal life. Now we sing, and 
have reason to sing— 

“ Nothing either great or small 
Remains for me to do; 

Jesus died and paid it all, 

All the debt I owe. 

When he, from his lofty throne. 

Stooped down to do and die, 

Everything was fully done; 

« Tis finished ’ was his cry.” 

Now we sing, and have a right to sing, 
“ I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my 
soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath 
clothed me with the garments of salvation, 
he hath covered me with the robe of right- 


22 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


eousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself 
with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth 
herself with her jewels.” Isa. lxi. io. 

But there is an internal righteousness, a 
righteousness that dwells in the soul, and 
wells up from its depths, and accrues to 
the soul’s own advantage. It is that right¬ 
eousness without which no man can ever 
see the Lord. 

This righteousness is illustrated by that 
well-known series of facts already alluded 
to in Jewish history. In Jerusalem a man 
was accused, arrested, tried, condemned 
and executed. But, although the authority 
of two nations united in his condemnation, 
and the power of the most powerful na¬ 
tion of those times thrust him into his 
grave, and set its seal upon that grave, 
and placed a military guard to watch lest 
his friends should steal his body away, 
yet in less than forty hours he was walk¬ 
ing the earth again alive and well! For 
he was not only innocent of the crimes 


THE OBJECT OF THE CRA V/NG. 


23 


charged against him, but he was also in¬ 
nocent of all crimes. He was not only 
innocent of all crimes, but his whole life 
was one stream of virtue. He was not 
only externally virtuous, but he was also 
all-glorious within—holy as holiness, pure 
as purity; and though you bury holiness 
fathoms deep and pile all the mountains 
on its grave, it will fling those mountains 
into the sea and rise again in glory. 

“ Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again; 

The eternal years of God are hers; 

While Error, wounded, writhes in pain. 

And dies among her worshipers.” 


Now, here is an internal righteousness 
—a righteousness of thought and feeling, 
going forth into a righteousness of exter¬ 
nal life. And this is the righteousness 
which forms the object of this twin crav¬ 
ing in the beatitude, and to which the sat- 
isfaction is promised. For that other right¬ 
eousness, the righteousness of justification, 


24 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


is an object of hungering to neither saint 
nor sinner. Not to the saint, for he is al¬ 
ready in full possession of this righteous¬ 
ness; and why should he hunger and thirst 
for that which is already his ? Indeed, the 
treasure of external righteousness which 
the believer calls his own is much larger 
than that on the ground of which he is 
free from condemnation. This possession 
of his is twofold. It consists, first, of the 
merit of that satisfaction which his Elder 
Brother rendered to law and justice in 
bearing the penalty of sin ; and, second, it 
consists of the merit of that life of holy 
obedience wherein Jesus, though the source 
and author of the law, became subject to 
the law, and kept it in letter and spirit, 
in thought and word and deed. This 
merit the believer wears as a robe, a wed¬ 
ding-garment, which makes him “ accepted in 
the beloved,” and assures him of the bene¬ 
diction, “Well done, good and faithful ser¬ 
vant! enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” 


THE OBJECT OF THE CRAVING. 


Our Elder Brother, before he went to 
death for us, went through life for us. 
Before he reached the garden of Geth- 
semane he had for three earnest years 
fought for us the battle of life. He was 
tempted in all points like as we are. As 
a member of a family, as a neighbor, as a 
citizen, he fulfilled all righteousness. He 
harmed no one. He caused no tears. Dur¬ 
ing the three years of his public life he 
displayed all the glories of a perfect man¬ 
hood. His obedience he carried to the 
last moment of his life. His cry, “It is 
finished,” included the idea of a finished 
and complete obedience. And now mil¬ 
lions are in heaven in the enjoyment of 
the reward of that obedience, and millions 
more on earth are recognized and accept¬ 
ed of God, and their names enrolled in his 
family record, simply because that won¬ 
drous One lived and died for them. 

Now, we say that this twofold external 
righteousness is no object of longing to 


26 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


the believer , for it is already in his actual 
possession, and he is every moment ex¬ 
periencing the benefits which flow from 
it. 

To the unbeliever neither the one portion 
nor the other of this righteousness is an 
object of desire. As he is. dead in sin, 
so he is also dead in spiritual sensibility. 
There are those who have “refused to 
hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, 
and stopped their ears that they should 
not hear. Yea, they made their hearts as 
an adamant stone, lest they should hear 
the law and the word which the Lord of 
hosts hath sent.” Zech. vii. n, 12. There 
are those who have “ the understanding 
darkened, being alienated from the life of 
God through the ignorance that is in them 
because of the blindness of their heart,” 
and who therefore are “ past feeling.” Eph. 
iv. 18, 19. They who are in this condition 
hunger for no food in all the orchard of 
God. 


THE OBJECT OF THE CFAVING. 


27 


But what of those who, under the opera¬ 
tion of the Spirit, have been aroused from 
this insensibility and filled with alarm in 
view of their guilt and danger? Are they 
not hungering and thirsting after this justi¬ 
fying righteousness of Christ? Not if they 
are still in impenitence and unbelief. The 
one cry of their soul is for relief from dan¬ 
ger, for an open gate to safety. They have 
no preference for the righteousness of Christ 
as the means of safety and a pathway to it. 
To the acceptance of that righteousness 
they are intensely averse. Hence they 
come to it only as a last resort. They 
accept of it only when every other re¬ 
source has failed. For a long time they 
go about to establish their own righteous¬ 
ness, and will not submit themselves unto 
the righteousness of God. What they de¬ 
sire and long for is relief, rescue ; and this 
rescue they will accept at the hands of 
any one else in preference to Jesus Christ. 

And then, when once the soul reaches 


28 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


the condition in which it is willing to be 
saved upon the terms offered in the gos¬ 
pel, willing to be delivered and accepted on 
the ground of Jesus’ righteousness, there 
remains no time to hunger and thirst for 
this righteousness, for it is already at hand. 
Christ waits only to see the soul willing 
to be clad in this mantle of salvation to 
throw it at once upon the soul. 

The object, therefore, of this twin crav¬ 
ing—this hungering and thirsting—is an 
internal righteousness, a sanctifying right¬ 
eousness, purity of heart, conformity to 
God, likeness to Christ. 


THE SEAT OF THE CRAVING. 

The seat of this twin appetite is the re¬ 
generate heart . None but believers can 

experience this craving, for two reasons: 
i. Hunger and thirst are functions of 



THE SEAT OF THE CRAVING. 


2 9 


life. They are a protest of life against its 
own extinguishment. They are a piteous 
petition of life for food for its nourishment. 
They are a call of life for that which shall 
enable it yet to live. But the dead do not 
hunger. The lifeless corpse may lie under 
a fig tree hanging all over with ripe figs, 
and with its eyes upon all that wealth of 
luscious nutriment; by its side may gush 
in exuberant affluence the cool, sparkling 
waters of the fountain; but neither the 
gleam from the fig-rind nor the music of 
the fountain will waken any hungering or 
thirsting in that cold, still heart. The dead 
do not, cannot, hunger or thirst. 

But the nature unrenewed is dead— 
“ dead in trespasses and sins.” It is wan¬ 
dering out of the way of understanding, 
and therefore it remains in the congrega¬ 
tion of the dead. Prov. xxi. 16. The Spirit 
of God lays his fingers on the wrist, but 
feels there no movement of spiritual pul¬ 
sation. He puts his hand over the heart 


30 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


and feels there no sign of vitality. In the 
eye he sees no tear of penitence, in the 
heart no flame of love or joy, in the un¬ 
derstanding no conception of spiritual re¬ 
alities. Being thus spiritually dead, there 
is nothing in the unrenewed nature that 
can hunger or thirst for the viands on the 
table of Christ. Such a one may dwell in 
a very Eden of spiritual privilege:—the 
church-going bell rings on the ear; the 
music of gospel invitation and entreaty 
trembles on the air; the communion-table 
is spread before the eye; the prayers of 
the godly ever ascend in his behalf; father, 
mother, wife, or child beckon to the feast; 
but to the consciousness of such a soul 
all this is as the “ Te deum laudamus ” in 
the cathedral to the marble statues that 
fill the niches in wall or clustered pillar. 
Such souls do not, and they cannot, hun¬ 
ger and thirst after righteousness. 

2 . Hungering and thirsting for any par¬ 
ticular article of food or drink implies 


THE SEAT OF THE CRAVING. 31 

familiarity with its flavor. One may hun¬ 
ger in general, may be in anguish for want 
of food — so hungry that he would gnaw 
the bones that the dogs have left, so thirs¬ 
ty that he would drink from the stagnant, 
filthy pool. But if he longs for any par¬ 
ticular kinds of food or drink, it is because 
in other days he has tasted and is familiar 
with their flavor. If he craves a fig, it is 
because he has learned by experience its 
luscious taste to the hungry mouth. If he 
longs for a draught of water from a par¬ 
ticular spring, it is because, in times gone 
by, he has put its waters to his thirsty lips. 
And so it is with the cravings of the soul. 
No doubt the human soul may be very 
hungry. It may experience cravings which 
no food in the world’s gift can satisfy. 
The world is full of such hungerings and 
thirstings. That Hindoo devotee who has 
gone from altar to altar seeking quietude 
for his disturbed spirit; Luther creeping 
on his knees up the steps of the Scala 


32 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


Santa at Rome; those Romish pilgrims, 
passing from shrine to shrine in quest of 
peace of spirit; and multitudes in every 
age and every land who so eagerly quaff 
every cup of pleasure, ambition and fame, 
—are all of them tormented with spiritual 
hunger and thirst. But to the soul unre¬ 
newed by the Spirit of God specific hun¬ 
gering and thirsting for righteousness is im¬ 
possible. Of this manna he has never tast¬ 
ed ; a cup of this wine has never touched 
his lips; and therefore, knowing nothing 
of their flavor, for them he cannot hunger. 
Hence the seat of this twin craving is the 
renewed nature. 

Here, then, we have a hungering and 
thirsting, a twin appetite, that clamors for 
satisfaction. 


THE SATISFACTION. 

For this craving there must be, some¬ 
where in the storehouses of God, appro- 



THE SATISFACTION. 


33 


priate and adequate means of satisfaction. 
For God, by the operation of his Spirit, 
has caused the craving. And surely God 
has planted in no one of his creatures a 
vain hungering and thirsting after the 
non-existent and impossible. In the con¬ 
stitution of no beast that prowls in the 
forest or roams through the fields, of no 
fowl that flies or fish that swims, has God 
set an appetite doomed to crave in vain. 
Somewhere there is food appropriate and 
abundant for every hunger and every 
thirst. Especially is this true of man. 
Appetite unfed is anguish, and God made 
this world a paradise, not a desolate, dis¬ 
mal home of the famine-stricken. Thus, 
as there are physical appetites in man, so 
there are orchards and gardens and grain- 
fields abounding with fruit and food for 
his feeding. If there are physical thirsts 
in man, ten thousand bubbling fountains 
warble him a welcome to their treasures. 
Often in the Holy Word is our attention 


34 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


called to God’s fatherly care for man’s 
physical wants: “He causeth the grass to 
grow for the cattle, and herb for the ser¬ 
vice of man : that he may bring forth food 
out of the earth; and wine that maketh 
glad the heart of man, and oil to make his 
face to shine, and bread which strengthen¬ 
ed man’s heart.” Ps. civ. 14, 15. 

Nor is there any creature that is over¬ 
looked or neglected: “He giveth to the 
beast his food, and to the young ravens 
which cry.” Ps. cxlvii. 9. 

Jesus himself, in the very sermon that 
opens with the beatitudes, uses this argu¬ 
ment to win from man confiding trust in 
God : “ Behold the fowls of the air: for they 
sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather 
into barns; yet your heavenly Father feed- 
eth them. Are ye not much better than 
they?” Matt. vi. 26. 

And with what fatherly love and match¬ 
less eloquence does he pledge himself to 
supply the wants of his famishing poor!— 


THE SATISFACTION. 


35 


“ When the poor and needy seek water, and 
there is none, and their tongue faileth for 
thirst, I the Lord will hear them, I the God 
of Israel will not forsake them. I will open 
rivers in high places, and fountains in the 
midst of the valleys: I will make the wil¬ 
derness a pool of water, and the dry land 
springs of water. That they may see, and 
know, and consider, and understand to¬ 
gether, that the hand of the Lord hath 
done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath 
created it.” Isa. xli. 17, 18, 20. 

“ Beneath the spreading heavens 
No creature but is fed; 

And He who feeds the ravens 
Will give his children bread.” 

If, now, God has provided so fully for the 
wants of bird and beast, and for the body 
that perishes, can he have either forgotten 
or neglected the more pressing wants of 
the never-dying soul ? Has he not taken 
the pains to send his Son to be born in a 
stable, cradled in a manger, tempted in 


36 FEEDING ON CHRIST. 

the wilderness, hunted through life like 
the partridge upon the mountains, and to 
be hunted down—hunted to the agonies 
of Gethsemane and of Golgotha, and hunt¬ 
ed into the sepulchre ? And then he has 
sent his Spirit to take of these things of 
Christ, and, with them as his instruments, 
to create anew these souls, in order that in 
them might spring up this hungering and 
thirsting. And on this twofold craving he 
has pronounced his benediction. Blessed 
are they that feel this hunger and experi¬ 
ence this thirst! But how can a hunger 
and thirst for which no satisfaction is pro¬ 
vided be the object of divine Love’s bene¬ 
diction ? He has pledged his word that 
the craving shall find satisfaction; and 
therefore nothing is more certain than 
that somewhere in God’s treasure-house 
of grace there are means adequate and 
abundant to satisfy such longings. What¬ 
ever be the intensity of the appetite, it 
shall be filled to the full. The hungering 


THE FOOD. 


37 


cannot overreach the provision. Some¬ 
where in this mountain the Lord of hosts 
hath made for the hungry, thirsty soul “a 
feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the 
lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines 
on the lees well refined.” Isa. xxv. 6. 


THE FOOD. 

What is it? Where is it? 

To feed our natural appetites we must 
go out of ourselves—out into the orchards 
and vineyards, out into the grain-fields, out 
to the flocks and herds in the stall. To 
satisfy our thirsting we must go to the 
moss-edged well, out to the bubbling foun¬ 
tain. Whither are we to go to satisfy this 
twin craving of the renewed soul ? Surely, 
out of ourselves. For never were the des¬ 
erts more dry, never mountain-side more 
bleak and barren of food, than our sin- 
parched natures of all spiritual nutriment. 



38 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


“ I know,” writes even a Paul, “ that in me, 
that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing.” 
Rom. vii. 18. Yet it is for good things 
the soul is craving. Trusting in the arm 
of flesh, we are like the heath in the desert, 
like “parched places in the wilderness, a salt 
land not inhabited.” Jer. xvii. 5, 6. Nor can 
we resort to any devices of our own wit 
and wisdom; for thus we shall only hew 
out for ourselves cisterns, “broken cisterns, 
that can hold no water.” Jer. ii. 13. Not to 
our fellow-Christians can we look, for they 
are in the same plight with ourselves, and 
they answer us as King Jehoram in the 
famine at Samaria answered the cry of the 
mother whose son was demanded of her 
to be killed for food: “ What aileth thee ? 
If the Lord do not help thee, whence shall 
I help thee? Out of the barn-floor, or out 
of the wine-press ?” Not to the unbelieving 
world around, for they, gorged with world¬ 
liness, know neither what the hungering nor 
the food is like. Not to art or science, for 


THE FOOD. 


39 


many of those who have dug deepest into 
the treasures of the one and have soared 
highest among the sublimities of the other 
are feeding their poor souls on the husks 
of unbelief and the garbage of immorality. 
Among all of them “ it shall even be as when 
an hungry man dreameth, and, behold, he 
eateth; but he awaketh, and his soul is 
empty: or as when a thirsty man dream¬ 
eth, and, behold, he drinketh; but he awa¬ 
keth, and, behold, he is faint, and his soul 
hath appetite.” Isa. xxix. 8. 

And still the hungering, thirsting spirit 
cries, “ Whither shall I betake myself for 
this righteousness wherewith to fill the 
soul ?” “ The depth saith, It is not in 
me: and the sea saith, It is not in me. It 
cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall 
silver be weighed for the price thereof. 
It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, 
with the precious onyx, or the sapphire. 
The gold and the crystal cannot equal it: 
and the exchange of it shall not be for 


40 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


jewels of fine gold. No mention shall be 
made of coral, or of pearls; for the price 
of it is above rubies.” Job xxviii. 14-18. 

Whence, then, is it to come ? Where am 
I to find it? We certainly do not mistake 
when we say that from out that upper 
chamber in Jerusalem the answer comes 
to our ears. There is gathered a strange 
assembly. A supper is spread—a last sup¬ 
per, a parting meal. Thirteen men recline 
around the table. Before the sun goes 
down to-morrow two of those thirteen 
will have left the world—one by self-mur¬ 
der, the other by murder at the hands of 
others. On that table are bread and wine. 
From that festal eminence the eye of the 
Master of the feast ranges over a starving 
world, and ere the crucifiers seize him and 
nail him to the tree he will institute a feast 
to be spread in coming days in the midst 
of hungry circles in every quarter of the 
globe. 

It is a feast that, however old, will be ever 


THE FOOD . 


41 


new. Jerusalem will sink into ruins, but 
this feast, will yet be spread. Huns, Goths 
and Vandals will wipe out the Roman em¬ 
pire as the servant wipeth out a platter, 
turning it upside down; but the platter on 
that table shall never be broken, its chalice 
never be overturned. New civilizations 
shall arise to adorn society or corrupt 
mankind; a new world shall be discovered; 
new artilleries shall pour their thunders; 
the printing-press shall flood the nations 
with light. Science shall search into all 
the deep things that are in the heavens 
above, and in the earth beneath, and in 
the waters under the earth. Martyr-fires 
shall blaze from Jerusalem to Rome, from 
Rome to Britain, and from Britain to Mad¬ 
agascar; the heathen shall rage and the 
people imagine a vain thing; the kings 
of the earth shall set themselves, and the 
princes take counsel together against the 
Lord and against his Anointed ; and still, 
amid all the changes of time and things, 


42 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


this feast shall ever be spread—now in the 
secluded upper chamber, now in the lofty 
cathedral, now among the caves and dens 
of the mountains. And on that table men 
shall ever see in symbol the one only Food 
for the soul. 

And now that first Last Supper is over. 
The bread has been broken, the wine 
poured out, the meal eaten; the long, lov¬ 
ing discourse has come to an end, and all 
heads are bowed while the great Master 
prays. And in his prayer he pleads, 
“ Sanctify them through thy truth; thy 
word is truth.” John xvii. 17. But to sanc¬ 
tify is to make righteous with that internal 
righteousness for which the renewed man 
hungers and thirsts. This prayer, then, 
cries, Feed , satisfy , those hungering, thirst¬ 
ing ones with thy truth. But what truth? 
Truth about what ? Undeniably, truth 
about that suppliant at that table. Other 
truth, truth about other things,—all is God’s 
truth, “ thy truth /” and other truth may 


THE FOOD. 


43 


enlighten and instruct and build man up 
to a higher manhood; but what other truth 
sanctifies , makes holy, feeds with righteous¬ 
ness, or at least with anything like the 
power that dwells in the truth about Jesus 
Christ, and flows from it? Truth about 
him, do we say? Why not go further? 
Why not say at once, truth which is that 
suppliant; truth which that suppliant is ? 
Did it not come from his own blessed lips 
while speaking at that very table, “ I am 
the truth ” ? John xiv. 6. John said that 
Jesus was full of truth (i. 14), but Jesus 
adds, “I am the truth.” John said, “Truth 
came by Jesus Christ;” Jesus says, “I am 
the truth.” He said to those who believed 
on him, “ The truth shall make you free.” 
John viii. 31, 32. But he is the Liberator 
of man! Jesus calls the Holy Ghost “the 
Spirit of truth,” but Peter calls him “the 
Spirit of Christ.” 1 Pet. i. 11. “The Spirit 
of truth,” saith Christ, “will guide you into 
all truth” (John xvi. 13), and he added, “He 


44 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


shall glorify me: for he shall receive of 
mine, and he shall show it unto you.” v. 14. 

We are only on the surface of things till 
we have dug down and found Christ as the 
underlying Rock. He is the Truth-rock 
underlying all things even in the old dis¬ 
pensation. The substratum of the truth 
in that golden mercy-seat, in tabernacle 
and temple, in that altar of incense, in 
that table of shew-bread, in that golden 
candlestick, in that brazen laver, in that 
brazen altar, and in those ever-bleeding 
sacrifices, the scape-goat and the slain 
goat, the atoning lamb, in all rites and 
ceremonies from Aaron to Caiaphas,—was 
Jesus Christ! Aside from him all was 
dumb, empty show, pantomime and mas¬ 
querade. 

“Sanctify them through thy truth; thy 
Word is truth.” But “in the beginning 
was the Word, and the Word was with 
God, and the Word was God. All things 
were made by him. In him was life,” said 


THE FOOD. 


45 


John (i. 1-4), and Jesus said, “I am the 
life.” 

The Chaldee paraphrasts, the most an¬ 
cient Jewish writers, generally make use of 
the word memra , the Word , in those places 
where Moses used the word Jehovah. They 
say that it was the Word that created the 
world—that appeared to Moses on Sinai, 
to Abraham at Mamre, and to Jacob at 
Bethel. Thus as Caiaphas (John xi. 50) un¬ 
wittingly prophesied of Jesus, so the Jews 
of old, unknown to themselves, lapsed 
into the truth about the Word. Jesus is 
the Word that God spake into the world 
for its salvation. As Christ is the under¬ 
lying truth of the old dispensation, so he 
is the vital sap in the whole glorious tree 
of revelation. As the sunbeams radiate 
from the orb of day, penetrating space, 
illuming the world and vitalizing its forces, 
so Jesus Christ radiates from the centre of 
revealed truth and replenishes every par¬ 
ticular truth widi all its sanctifying energy. 


46 FEEDING ON CHRIST. 

As the radii of a circle all meet at the 
centre, so all sanctifying truths meet in 
Jesus Christ. 

When, then, we have dug down to the 
solid rock, when we have traced the streams 
to their fountain-head, when we have pen¬ 
etrated through the shell to the kernel, we 
have found our way to the precious verity 
of this beatitude, and are ready to read it 
in all the fullness of its meaning: “Blessed 
are they that hunger and thirst after Me , 
for they shall be filled.” 

Let us recall the fact that it was at the 
sacramental table that Jesus prayed, “Sanc¬ 
tify them through thy truth; thy word is 
truth.” There, before him, is the bread 
of which he had just said, “Take, eat; this 
is my body which is broken for you ;” and 
there is also the wine of which he had 
said, “ This cup is the new testament in 
my blood; drink ye all of it.” “ Blessed 
are they which do hunger and thirst after 
me.” Upon that table are the bread for 


THE FOOD. 


47 


the hunger and the wine for the thirst; 
each pointing with steady finger to Him 
who is at once the bread and wine, the 
one, sole, all-satisfying food of our spir¬ 
itual nature. 

Many other Scriptures and Scripture facts 
point us to Christ as the meat and drink of 
the soul. Paul tells us that Christ is our 
Passover, i Cor. v. 7. Christ is shown us 
in the paschal lamb. But that lamb was 
eaten. “And they shall eat the flesh in 
that night, roast with fire.” Ex. xii. 8. 
Their eating of that lamb fed their souls 
with trust in God and with expectation of 
deliverance from their enemies, of provision 
for their wants and of ultimate entrance 
into the promised land. Christ is our Pass- 
over. On him we are to feed as the food 
of our souls; and not the meat only, but 
the drink also. For the Jews, when they 
celebrated the passover, though they did 
not drink the blood, drank wine, which 
represented the blood. And at the sup- 


48 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


per Jesus said, “This cup is the new tes¬ 
tament in my blood; drink ye all of it.” 
Again we see Christ as the meat and 
drink of the soul, and again we hear the 
beatitude: “Blessed are they that hunger 
and thirst after me.” 

In the manna strewn by angels’ hands 
for Israel in the desert does not Christ 
reappear as soul-food for man ? To the 
Jews who demanded that, as Moses gave 
manna to Israel in the desert, Jesus should 
show some corresponding sign as a ground 
of the faith he challenged from them, he an¬ 
swered that the same God who gave the 
manna to their fathers now offered to their 
children his Son, as manna infinitely more 
precious. John vi. 31-35. Nay, does he not 
intimate that he was the spiritual truth that 
lay hidden in that manna—that that man¬ 
na was in truth a type of him ? “ My Fa¬ 

ther giveth you the true bread ”—the real, 
not the representative, manna from heaven, 
v. 32. When Israel first saw the manna on 


THE FOOD. 


49 


the ground — a small, round thing as small 
as the hoar-frost, white like the coriander- 
seed—they went about asking one another, 
Manna! what is it? And when Jesus came 
they long puzzled themselves and one an¬ 
other with the inquiry, “Who is this?” 
Matt. xxi. io. Still the old question: Man¬ 
na! what is it? And Jesus answered their 
question: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, 
Moses gave you not that bread from heav¬ 
en ; but my Father giveth you the true 
bread from heaven. For the bread of God 
is He which cometh down from heaven, 
and giveth life unto the world.” John vi. 
32 , 33 - 

Paul also (in 1 Cor. x. 1-4) repeats the 
assurance that Christ is both the meat 
and drink of the soul: “ Moreover, breth¬ 
ren, I would not that ye should be ignor¬ 
ant, how that all our fathers were under 
the cloud, and all passed through the sea; 
and were all baptized unto Moses in the 

cloud and in the sea; and did all eat the 
4 


50 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


same spiritual meat; and did all drink the 
same spiritual drink: for they drank of 
that spiritual Rock that followed them: 
and that Rock was Christ/’ 

“ The camp of Israel was pitched in Reph- 
idim, and there was no water for the peo¬ 
ple to drink.” Ex. xvii. 6. There was a 
rock in Horeb, and at God’s command 
Moses, with his rod, smote that rock, and 
lo! the water came out abundantly. And 
the Spirit, by the pen of Paul, tells us that 
rock was Christ: “ And they drank of that 
spiritual Rock, and that Rock was Christ.” 
i Cor. x. 4. And the Rock, Christ, was 
smitten there at that Gethsemane (Mar- 
ah) and at that Golgotha (Meribah), (Ex. 
xvii. 7), the place of murmuring and chid¬ 
ing and tempting of the Lord, where they 
that passed by reviled him, wagging their 
heads, and the malefactors railed on him ; 
and from that hour the true Israel, wend¬ 
ing their way from their Red Sea of rescue 
to their Jordan-passage into their promised 


THE FOOD. 


51 


land, have ever been drinking from the 
streams which issued forth at that terrible 
smiting. 

, He is the citron tree hanging full of 
fruit burnished with golden rind. Of him 
one prophet writes, “Behold the man whose 
name is The Branch.” Zech. vi. 12. And 
another prophet, “There shall come forth 
a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a 
Branch shall grow out of his roots.” Isa. 
xi. 1. “The citron tree,” writes Dr. George 
Burrows, “seems to be here intended. The 
foliage is perpetual. Throughout the year 
there is a continual succession of blossoms, 
young fruit and ripe fruit. The fruit was 
of the color of gold, very pleasant to the 
taste and reviving to those who were ready 
to faint.” Happy those who find him in 
their hungering! and more happy they who 
feed their hunger liberally upon his fruit! 
and most happy they who fill their souls 
with it! He is the full-hanging apple tree: 
“ As the apple tree among the trees of the 


52 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I 
sat down under his shadow with great de¬ 
light, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.” 
So sings the bride of Jesus in the Canticles. 
Solomon’s Song, ii. 3. Dr. Burrows again 
writes: “The apple tree yielded a profusion 
of the richest fruits. It was sweet to the 
taste, of refreshing fragrance and of the 
color of gold.” He alone can satisfy the 
cravings of the heart. 

And now comes like a chime of silver 
bells on our ears those words of Jesus 
himself: “ I am the bread which came down 
from heaven. The Jews then murmured at 
him, because he said, I am the bread which 
came down from heaven. And they said, Is 
not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose fa¬ 
ther and mother we know ? How is it then 
that he saith, I came down from heaven? 
Jesus therefore answered and said unto 
them, Murmur not among yourselves. No 
man can come to me, except the Father 
which hath sent me draw him: and I will 


THE FOOD. 


53 


raise him up at the last day. It is writ¬ 
ten in the prophets, And they shall be all 
taught of God. Every man therefore that 
hath heard, and hath learned of the Fa¬ 
ther, cometh unto me. Not that any man 
hath seen the Father, save he which is of 
God, he hath seen the Father. Verily 
verily, I say unto you, He that believeth 
on me hath everlasting life. I am that 
bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna 
in the wilderness, and are dead. This is 
the bread which cometh down from heav¬ 
en, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. 
I am the living bread which came down 
from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, 
he shall live for ever: and the bread that 
I will give is my flesh, which I will give for 
the life of the world. The Jews therefore 
strove among themselves, saying, How can 
this man give us his flesh to eat? Then 
Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say 
unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the 
Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have 


54 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and 
drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I 
will raise him up at the last day. For my 
flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink 
indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drink¬ 
eth my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. 
As the living Father hath sent me, and I 
live by the Father: so he that eateth me, 
even he shall live by me. This is that 
bread which came down from heaven: not 
as your fathers did eat manna, and are 
dead: he that eateth of this bread shall 
live for ever.” John vi. 41-58. 

Jesus, then, is both the food and the drink. 
For as he said, “ I am the bread of life ; he 
that cometh unto me shall never hunger, 
and he that believeth on me shall never 
thirst ” (John vi. 35), so also he said, “ In the 
last day, that great day of the feast, If any 
man thirst, let him come unto me, and 
drink.” John vii. 37. 

In Jesus healing diseases we see the one 
balm of Gilead for all our diseases. In 


THE FOOD. 


55 


Jesus giving sight to the blind we see the 
one Light of the soul. In Jesus calming 
the storm we see the one only “hiding- 
place from the wind,” the “ covert from the 
tempest.” Isa. xxxii. 2. In Jesus wiping the 
tears of Mary and Martha we see the only 
true consolation for the broken-hearted 
children of men—anointed to bind up the 
broken-hearted—“To appoint unto them 
that mourn in Zion, to give unto them 
beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourn¬ 
ing, the garment of praise for the spirit of 
heaviness; that they might be called trees 
of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, 
that he might be glorified.” Isa. lxi. 3. 
And in Jesus feeding the five thousand in 
the wilderness we see the true meat and 
drink of the renewed nature. 

So true is it, therefore, that Jesus Christ 
is the one real sustenance of the soul. Of 
him must we eat; of him must we drink ; 
our hunger is to be fed on him; our thirst 
is to be slaked on him. He was born at 


56 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


Bethlehem, the house of bread—he the 
bread in that house. He too is the well 
at Bethlehem’s gate, and he the water in 
that well. Well, then, may we read this 
beatitude: “ Blessed are they which do 
hunger and thirst after Me; for they shall 
be filled.” 

There is a righteousness for us outside 
of ourselves, and there is a righteousness 
for the soul within; and Christ is both the 
one and the other. The former is a robe 
hung by the Spirit on the shoulders of the 
soul for its own joy, and to give it beauty 
in the eyes of God and the angels. It is 
a jeweled robe, for all Christ’s obedience 
sparkles in it. And the righteousness with¬ 
in is a life. The Spirit of life from God 
has entered into them (Rev. xi. n), and 
Christ is this life. Col. iii. 4. Twenty-five 
hundred years ago an inspired prophet 
wrote, “The Lord our Righteousness ” (Jer. 
xxiii. 6)—righteousness to us, the external 
righteousness, the righteousness of justifi- 


THE FOOD. 


57 


cation. And by it we are made “ the right¬ 
eousness of God.” 2 Cor. v. 21. And this 
Righteousness is Christ—for he is the Right¬ 
eous Branch—raised up unto David. “This 
is the name whereby he shall be called, The 
Lord our Righteousness .” Jer. xxiii. 5, 6. Sev¬ 
en hundred years after Jeremiah an in¬ 
spired apostle wrote,~ But of him are ye 
in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto 
us not only wisdom, and righteousness—the 
external righteousness—but sanctification 
also. God makes Christ both our justifi¬ 
cation and sanctification. “These,” writes 
Dr. Charles Hodge in his commentary on 
this passage, “are intimately united as dif¬ 
ferent aspects of the same thing. Right¬ 
eousness is that which satisfies the demands 
of the law as a rule of justification ; sancti¬ 
fication, or holiness, is that which satisfies the 
law as a rule of duty. Christ is both to us.” 

Whoever, then, hungers and thirsts after 
righteousness, hungers and thirsts after 
Christ. 


58 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


CHRIST AS THE SOUL’S FOOD. 

Let us now withdraw our eyes from 
every other aspect of Christ and fix them 
upon his being, character and work as 
the food of the renewed nature—the spe¬ 
cific object of the twin craving referred 
to in the beatitude. 

i. In this aspect we are to recognize his 
perfect holiness. He is “ holy, harmless, 
undefiled, separate from sinners.” Heb. vii. 
26. Not a seam in his apparel, not a wrin¬ 
kle in his robe, not a blemish in his charac¬ 
ter. He is not only immaculate, spotless, 
but positively, perfectly holy—every emo¬ 
tion, motive and thought as pure as the 
glory that ripples against the throne of 
God. Nay, he is holiness itself—our holi¬ 
ness, holiness unto us; for “of God are ye 
in Christ Jesus, who of God”—by God as 
the efficient cause and force—“ is made 
unto us sanctification,” which is holiness. 
1 Cor. i. 30. 


CHRIST AS THE SOUL'S FOOD. 


59 

But food feeds the life—animal food the 
animal life, mental food the mental life, 
moral food the moral life, religious food the 
religious life, Christ-food the Christ-life. A 
healthy frame by feeding upon strong meat 
accumulates muscle, nerve, force and energy 
of physical life; man grows to be a healthy 
and powerful animal. A vigorous intellect, 
feeding on mental food, gathering great 
thoughts, studying the stars and the earth- 
strata, the mountains and volcanoes, beasts, 
birds and flowers, grows to kinghood among 
men, and even after death “ rules men’s spir¬ 
its from the urn.” A high moral nature, pon¬ 
dering the great principles of right, duty 
and obligation, and putting those principles 
into practice, becomes the dew of heaven 
upon the great garden of common, secular 
interests among men. But mental life is 
far richer in its nature than animal life, 
and moral life far higher than mental life; 
and high over all these, as the heavens 
above the earth, is the life introduced into 


6o 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


man when he is born again—born not of 
blood nor of the will of the flesh, but of 
God. This is the life of God in the soul 
of man. 

But all life must be fed; all life has 
appetite. Each style of life must be fed 
with food convenient for it and adapted 
to it. You cannot feed the mind on meats, 
bread and butter and fruits. A giant in 
frame may be a babe in intellect. You 
cannot feed the moral nature to vigor on 
mere intellectual food. Giants in intellect 
have sometimes been bond-slaves of im¬ 
morality. Byron, while drinking every cup 
of fame, was drinking also every cup of 
shame. Neither can you feed the relig¬ 
ious life on mere moral principle, for many 
a moralist has scoffed at the name of piety 
and cursed the name of God. This new 
life must be fed with its own food, and as 
it is the life of God it must be fed on ho¬ 
liness. To this are men chosen of God— 
“ elect according to the foreknowledge of 


CHRIST AS THE SOULS FOOD. 


61 


God the Father, through sanctification ” 
(which is holiness) “of the Spirit.” i Pet. 
i. 2. And this food is Christ. The life 
may be in us as a spark; so was it with 
the Corinthians. They were mere babes 
in Christ, i Cor. iii. i. So was it with 
those Hebrews: “When for the time ye 
ought to be teachers, ye have need that 
one teach you again which be the first 
principles of the oracles of God.” Heb. v. 
12. It may, however, be as a blazing sun. 
It was so in Paul and John. And the dif¬ 
ference between these two grades of God- 
life is due to the difference in the propor¬ 
tion of Christ-food taken into the soul. The 
sick man loathes food, the strong man 
craves it. The babe in Christ takes food 
by the spoonful; the man in Christ takes 
it by the handful. He lives under the 
Christ-tree, and is ever plucking and eat¬ 
ing the golden apples. Oh for more of 
this feeding on Christ, eating and drinking 
of this holiness!—this holiness infusing it- 


62 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


self into the life of the soul and mingling 
with it—with its thoughts, its musings, its 
aims, motives, purposes, affections, voli¬ 
tions ! As in the spring-time the sap flows 
through all the tree, urging the bud into 
leaf and blossom, and ripening the blos¬ 
som into fruit, so in this our spring-time 
of life does this holiness within, when we 
feed hungrily upon it, flow through all 
the vitalities of the soul, issuing in buds, 
blossoms and all the bright, rich fruits of 
holiness—love, joy, peace, long-suffering, 
gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, tem¬ 
perance. 

2. Then, as the food of the soul, Christ 
is exceedingly attractive. 

To Eve in the garden the fruit of the 
forbidden tree was pleasant to the eye and 
a tree to be desired to make one wise. 
Gen. iii. 6. Much more pleasant to the 
eye of the renewed nature is the fruit 
upon this unforbidden tree. He is “ fairer 
than the children of men.” Ps. xlv. 2. 


CHRIST AS THE SOUL'S FOOD. 63 

As the flowers receive all their beauty 
from the sunbeam, so the bride of Christ, 
his Church, wears only a beauty reflected 
from her Lord; but even she is “ beautiful 
as Tirzah” and “comely as Jerusalem.” 
Cant. vi. 4. What, then, must be his 
beauty! He is “the brightness of the 
Father’s glory, and the express image 
of his person.” Heb. i. 3. David “was 
ruddy and withal of a beautiful counte¬ 
nance, and goodly to look to” (1 Sam. xvi. 
12) ; but the Root and Offspring of David 
“ is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten 
thousand. Yea, he is altogether lovely.” 
Cant. v. 10, 16. The morning star is 
beautiful; but of himself Jesus says, “I 
am the bright and morning Star.” Rev. xxii. 
16. The rose and the lily are beautiful, 
bright stars set by God’s hand in the earth’s 
green firmament; but Jesus says, ‘ I am the 
Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valley.” 
Cant. ii. 1. I, writes an Eastern poet, quoted 
by Dr. Burrows in his beautiful commentary 


64 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


on Solomon’s Song, and already cited more 
than once in these pages—“ I, like Atthar, 
that famous poet, came out of the garden 
of Nischabur; but Atthar was the rose, and 
I am only a bramble.” And the renewed 
soul in its holiest moods is ever ready to 
say, He is the rose, I but a poor bramble. 
The beauty of tabernacle and temple, the 
glory and beauty of Aaron’s holy garments 
(Ex. xxviii. 2), the beauty of the breastplate 
of judgment, with all the cunning of its 
workmanship, studded with jewels, sardius, 
topaz and carbuncle, emerald, sapphire 
and diamond, ligure, agate and amethyst, 
beryl, onyx and jasper (Ex. xxviii. 15- 
20) ; the beauty of the golden candlestick, 
and of the Shechinah over the golden mercy- 
seat,—were all but dust and rust to the beau¬ 
ty of Immanuel. A glimpse of this beauty 
was vouchsafed to the chosen three on 
the mount when he was transfigured before 
them, and ‘‘his face did shine as the sun,” 
“ and his raiment became white and shining, 


CHRIST AS THE SOUL'S FOOD. 65 

exceeding white as snow, so as no fuller on 
earth can white them. ,, Mark ix. 3. The be¬ 
loved disciple had glimpses of this beauty, 
the glory as of the only-begotten of the Fa¬ 
ther. And many a time have saintly spirits 
seen this beauty as they have worshipped 
on some mount of ordinances, some high 
sunny terrace of devout meditation, or 
kneeled in the praying-closet. 

“ There, there, on eagle-wings we soar, 

And time and sense seem all no more, 

And heaven comes down our souls to greet, 

And glory crowns the mercy-seat.” 

Cyrus the Great took captive in his wars 
a princess of surpassing beauty by the name 
of Panthea, the wife of Abradates, king of Su- 
siana. And on a certain day, it is said, Cy¬ 
rus, seated under the royal canopy and sur¬ 
rounded by his court and captains, summon¬ 
ed Abradates and his beautiful wife before 
him and asked the prince: “ What ransom are 
you willing to pay me for your bride ?” “ My 

life" was the answer. Touched by the loving 
5 


66 


FEEDING ON CHE 1ST. 


fervorof the reply, Cyrus dismissed them both 
without a ransom. And as they rode home¬ 
ward in their chariot the prince could think 
of nothing but the glories of Cyrus’s court 
and the magnanimity of his conduct. “ Did 
you ever see anything like it?” he exclaimed. 
Like what? asked Panthea. Like what? 
why , like Cyrus and the glories of his court. 
I did not see them , she answered. Not 
see them ? Where in the wo?'ld were your 
eyes? On the man , she answered, who 
said he zvould give his life for my ran¬ 
som. And as Abradates, with his won¬ 
drous devotion to her, eclipsed in Panthea’s 
eye all the glories of that scene, so Christ, on 
some mount of high devotion, eclipses in 
the eye of the renewed nature all other 
scenes, however glorious in the world’s 
view. 

At such seasons, absorbed in contempla¬ 
tion of this chiefest among ten thousand, 
who not only said he would give his life, 
but actually gave it in all the tortures of 


CHRIST AS THE SOUL'S FOOD . 


67 


the crucifixion, the believing soul sings the 
song of the quaint old poet: 

“ Ne from thenceforth does any fleshly sense 
Or idle thought of earthly things remain; 

So full my eyes are of that glorious sight 
And senses fraught with such satietie, 

That in naught else on earth can I delight. 

But in the aspect of that felicitie, 

Which I have written in my inward eye.” 

.Now in this beauty of Christ, as the meat 
and drink of the soul, consists its attractive¬ 
ness to the renewed nature. It is the golden 
glory of the orange, it is the divine purple 
in the clustering grape, it is the odor of the 
fragrant citron. No wonder the new life 
longs for it, pants for it, as the hart for the 
water-brooks! No wonder if with this in 
view it loathes all other and grosser food ! 
Wonderful that the new-born soul can think 
of aught but Christ, can allow the lip to say 
aught but Christ—Christ! Christ! A mother 
in Israel, relating to the writer her Christian 
experience, said, “Jesus came to me as at 
midnight I lay on my bed half dead with 


68 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


anguish for my sin; and when I saw him 
and believed, such joy filled my soul that I 
could lie still no longer. I rose and paced 
my room, and wondered that Christians 
could think or talk of anything but Christ.” 
Astonishing revolution ! But yesterday he 
was a “ root out of a dry ground, he had no 
form or comeliness, and when the eye saw 
him there was no beauty that it should de¬ 
sire him.” Isa. liii. 2. To-day he is the Rose 
of Sharon, the Lily of the Valley; and now 
as the eye sees him there is no beauty in 
anything else that it should desire besides 
it. Whom have I in heaven but thee ? and 
there is none upon earth that I desire besides 
thee. Ps. lxxiii. 25. This is the Lord’s 
doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes: 

“ Blest Jesus, what delicious fare ! 

How sweet thy entertainments are ! 

Never did angels taste above 
Redeeming grace and dying love !” 


Blessed they that hunger and thirst for 
this beauty, to live in them, flow through 


CHRIST AS THE SOUL'S FOOD. 


6 9 


them, beam from them, and clothe them 
with itself! Thrice blessed they that are 
filled with it! 

3. In Christ, as the meat and drink of 
the soul, there is also an element of power . 

In him is the power that creates—All 
things were made by him ; and the power 
that preserves in being— Upholding all 
things by the word of his power. Heb. 
i- 3 - 

As Messiah, all power is given unto him 
in heaven and in earth. In this Messianic 
office he is Christ the power of God. 1 Cor. 
i. 24. And this power is to be especi¬ 
ally put forth over, upon and in the souls 
of men. For it is especially over human 
minds and hearts that he is King. First 
and most of all, souls are his subjects. 
While yet in the flesh he made frequent 
and striking displays of power in this 
sphere of his dominion, both over souls as 
yet not grafted into him, and over those 
now branches of him, the Vine. He so im- 


7 o 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


pressed the woman of Samaria with whom 
he talked by the well (John iv. 7-29) that 
she felt as if the recording angel had come 
down from heaven to read in her ears from 
his book the whole story of her impure life. 
He told me all things that ever I did . 
When to the armed band that came to ar¬ 
rest him, he said, lam he! they went backward 
and fell to the ground. John xviii. 6. Such 
a power has he over the minds, purposes 
and courage of even wicked men reso¬ 
lutely bent on crime! 

What, in magnitude and energy, this 
power is, as awaiting and operating on his 
believing subjects, Paul tells us in that 
prayer of his for the Ephesian Christians 
(Eph. i. 15-23) where he writes of a power 
that is tousward. Ver. 19. It is a power that 
is stored in him as in an arsenal for us who 
believe. It is a power concentrated as in 
a focus toward us, waiting to pour itself 
into us. It is a table loaded with power, 
calling upon us, Eat , O friends; it is a 


CHRIST AS THE SOUHS FOOD. 


71 


vast fountain of power, bidding us, Drink , 
yea , drink abundantly , (9 beloved /” The 
munificence of this store, its unstinted 
affluence, are shown us in glowing, mighty 
terms in that prayer—“ I cease not to pray, 
that you, hungering and thirsting for Christ, 
may know what is the exceeding greatness 
of God’s power in Christ to usward who 
are believing.” It is a power like that put 
forth in raising Jesus from the dead and 
setting him at his own “right hand in the 
heavenly places, far above all principal¬ 
ity, and power, and might, and dominion, 
and every name that is named, not only 
in this world, but also in that which is to 
come: and hath put all things under his 
feet, and gave him to be the head over all 
things to the Church.” Eph. i. 15-23. Such 
is the power that is to usward, inviting us 
to feed upon it to our hearts’ content? This 
power is again set before us, in language 
that is crowded to bursting with thought, 
in Eph. iii. 14-20, where the writer first de- 


7 2 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


tails the glorious things this power aims to 
accomplish in the heart of the saints: “ For 
this cause I bow my knees unto the Fa¬ 
ther of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom 
the whole family in heaven and earth is 
named, that he would grant you, ac¬ 
cording to the riches of his glory, to be 
strengthened with might by his Spirit in 
the inner man ; that Christ may dwell in 
your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted 
and grounded in love, may be able to 
comprehend with all saints what is the 
breadth, and length, and depth, and height; 
and to know the love of Christ, which pass- 
eth knowledge, that ye might be filled with 
all the fullness of God.” Eph. iii. 14-19. 

These are the stupendous results he has 
been asking for the saints. And now he 
adds, All this , above all this, abundantly 
above all this , exceeding abundantly above 
all this —this power that is to usward, nay, 
that has wrought on, and is now working 
in us —is able to do. 


CHRIST AS THE SOUL’S FOOD. 


73 


An instance of this power in actual opera¬ 
tion within believing souls we witness in 
that scene on the shore of the Sea of Gal¬ 
ilee. Matt. iv. 18-22. At his call, Follow 
me and I will make you fishers of men , 
those fishermen, as if an electric shock 
had gone through them, dropped their 
nets, left their father, gave up their means 
of livelihood and followed him as sheep 
follow their shepherd. Again, Cleopas and 
his companion as they walked pensively 
from Jerusalem to Emmaus, exchanging 
their sad communications, felt their hearts 
on fire within them as the mysterious 
stranger poured his marvelous words into 
their ears. Luke xxiv. 1. Think, then, of the 
power of this mighty One who made the 
worlds, and from without so stirred the 
hearts of men, when, as the food of the 
soul, he is introduced into its very life! 
For the babe there is milk, for the strong 
man there is meat, for the renewed soul 
there is Christ, the power of God. Strong 


7 4 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


meat builds up muscle and nerve; Christ 
builds up spiritual life. To the soldier 
animal and vegetable food imparts spirit, 
vigor, courage, power of endurance ; Christ 
fed on by the renewed man makes him 
strong for God and good, fires him with 
zeal, fills him with energy, enables him to 
dare and triumph in the flames of mar¬ 
tyrdom—yea, even to covet the martyr’s 
crown. It was by virtue of the Christ- 
power in them, first working faith, and 
then working through faith, that the world’s 
worthies, of whom the world was not worthy, 
“subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, 
obtained promises, stopped the mouths of 
lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped 
the edge of the sword, out of weakness were 
made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned 
to flight the armies of the aliens. Women 
received their dead raised to life again ; and 
others were tortured, not accepting deliver¬ 
ance, that they might obtain a better resur¬ 
rection ; and others had trial of cruel mock- 


CHRIST AS THE SOUL'S FOOD. 


75 


ings and scourgings, yea, moreover, of bonds 
and imprisonment; they were stoned, they 
were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain 
with the sword: they wandered about in 
sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, 
afflicted, tormented.” Heb. xi. 33-37. 

Add now the moulding, transforming force 
of this power infused into the human soul- 
life. Give food to the man who, through 
exhaustion, has dropped out of the caravan 
and lies famishing on the burning sands in 
the desert, and you have made a new man 
of him. Fill this one with strong drink 
and you have turned him into another be¬ 
ing. Introduce, then, this mighty, all-holy 
Christ in large measure into a renewed 
man till he pervades all his being, and you 
have re-renewed him, making him more 
than ever dead unto sin, and more than 
ever alive unto righteousness—nay, alive 
with righteousness. When the battle flagged 
and the Gallic legions wavered, the appear¬ 
ance of Napoleon in their front on his 


;6 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


cream-colored charger baptized those sol¬ 
diers with himself, infused him into them 
and made each legionary almost a Napo¬ 
leon. And the Christian man, fed full of 
Christ, his spiritual organs eagerly assimi¬ 
lating him, becomes a human Christ. “Touch 
not mine anointed ones,” my Christs, saith 
God by the lips of his inspired penman. 
Ps. cv. 18. 

Blessed, then, are they which do hunger 
and thirst after this all-holy, all-beautiful, 
all-mighty Christ! 

4. Christ, as the meat and drink of the 
soul, embraces other and exceedingly pre¬ 
cious elements. 

To attain the conception of a complete 
Christ, as offered for food to the souls life, 
we must add to his holiness and beauty and 
power all that he did and suffered to prepare 
himself for the needs of hungering, thirsting 
souls. We must call to mind that if this 
Bread of God came to earth from heaven, 
he comes to us from the Bethlehem manger, 


CHRIST AS THE SOUL’S FOOD. 


77 


the Jordan baptism, the desert trial; through 
all the weary ways of his life among men, 
the solemn ways of his devotions in which 
he “ offered up prayers and supplications 
with strong crying and tears,” learning 
“ obedience by the things that he suffered ” 
(Heb. v. 7, 8); through all the sweet ways 
strewn with the flowers of his beneficence, 
healing the sick, cleansing the leper, raising 
the dead; vocal with sayings such as man 
never uttered; through Gethsemane, over 
Calvary, out of the sepulchre, and back 
again by his Spirit from the right hand of 
God, where he ever liveth to make inter¬ 
cession for us. For only through such a 
toilsome ploughing and laborious planting 
and sore pruning could the fruit be matured 
for the feeding of that great family whose 
names are written in heaven. To set those 
meats and fruits upon the family table at 
which we sit—parents, children, and friends 
to eat so joyously—the husbandman has 
toiled through heat and cold, the sailor has 


78 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


been bruised and beaten by the storm, 
the baker and confectioner have expended 
strength, the servant has labored with tired 
hands and frame, and the ox and the lamb 
have been smitten. And to set this soul- 
food before hungering, thirsting spirits, 
Christ, who is this food, sailed over the 
angry sea, was pelted with the angry 
storm, was hunted by bloodthirsty men, 
spent whole nights in prayer, was cruci¬ 
fied and slain, and was sepulchred with 
the dead. And the food we eat is com¬ 
pounded of all the wealth of his glori¬ 
ous being, all the treasure he amassed in 
his obedient life and in his fearful death. 
Among the last commands laid on Moses 
during that forty days and nights’ sojourn 
with God on Sinai’s top was the charge, 
“Take thou also unto thee principal spices, 
of pure myrrh five hundred shekels, and 
of sweet cinnamon half so much, even two 
hundred and fifty shekels, and of sweet cal¬ 
amus two hundred and fifty shekels, and of 


CHRIST AS THE SOUL'S FOOD. 


79 


cassia five hundred shekels, after the shekel 
of the sanctuary, and of oil-olive a hin : and 
thou shalt make it an oil of holy ointment, 
an ointment compound after the art of the 
apothecary; it shall be a holy anointing oil. 
And thou shalt speak unto the children of 
Israel, saying, This shall be a holy anointing 
oil unto me throughout your generations. 
Whosoever compoundeth any like it, or 
whosoever putteth any of it upon a stran¬ 
ger, shall even be cut off from his people.” 
Ex. xxx. 23-25, 31, 33. 

And we seem to hear the same Jehovah 
saying to a greater than Moses, “ My only- 
begotten, dearly-beloved Son, whom I give 
as my bread for life unto the world, take 
thou of thine infinite holiness, of thy match¬ 
less beauty, of thine unbounded power, and 
compound therewith the pain and humilia¬ 
tion of thy subjection to human ills, the wea¬ 
riness of thy toils, thy tears, thy groans and 
bloody sweat in the garden, the blood that 
trickled down thy face from the crown of 


So 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


thorns, that flowed over thy body in the 
scourging, and down the cross from thy 
hands, feet and side, the bitterness of thine 
hour of despair, the echoes of that cry of an¬ 
guish, and the blackness of that hour and 
power of darkness, and make therewith a 
loaf wherewith to feed all those myriads 
who, till time shall end, shall hunger and thirst 
after righteousness.” Here, indeed, is the 
Bread of God that came down from heave 7 i. 

Or, to vary the figure, Go thou , my Son , 
and gather all the grapes, and reap thou all 
the grain that thou hast caused to grow out of 
that stable and manger at Bethlehem, upon 
the margin of the river where thou wast 
baptized, out of that wilderness where 
for forty days among the wild beasts thou 
wast tempted, along those highways where 
sun and storm beat on thy dear form, on 
the mountain-slope where thou didst pray 
from darkening eve till rising dawn, out of 
the Garden, out of Golgotha, out of the 
sepulchre, out of Olivet’s top whence thou 


CHRIST AS THE SOUL'S FOOD. 


8l 


didst ascend to thy home on high ; and grind 
that grain, and make it into bread, and press 
those grapes into the wine-cup, and then 
go and put that loaf into the one hand and 
that cup into the other of that poor soul 
hungering and thirsting after righteousness, 
that he may be filled. 

O thou blessed God, what food is here! 
Food not for angels, but for man—for 
fallen, rebellious, sinful man! Our first 
parents ate of the fruits of Eden, but on 
the banks of the river that watered that 
garden no fruit like this ever grew. Around 
Israel in the desert God “ rained down 
manna,” and “ men did eat angels’ food.” 
Ps. lxxviii. 24, 25. But around angels in 
heaven God never rained food like this. 
They never, as man does, feed on this 
Christ-food. 


“ Not angels round the throne 
Of Majesty above, 

Are half so much obliged as we 
To our Immanuel’s love. 


82 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


“ They never sank so low. 

They are not raised so high; 

They never knew such depths of woe. 

Such heights of majesty. 

“ The Saviour did not join 
Their nature to his own; 

For them he shed no blood divine, 

Nor breathed a single groan.” 

In heaven the angels may sing with all 
the exquisite harmonies of their ten thou¬ 
sand times ten thousand voices, and play 
on all their harps and high-sounding cym¬ 
bals the music of the song, “Worthy the 
Lamb that was slain, to receive power and 
riches and wisdom and strength and honor 
and glory and blessing/' Rev. v. 12. But 
in this song they can never join: “Unto Him 
that loved us, and washed us from our sins in 
his own blood, and hath made us kings 
and priests unto God and his Father; to 
him be glory and dominion for ever and 
ever. Amen." Rev. i. 5, 6. Nor in this: 
“And they sung a new song, saying, Thou 
art, worthy to take the book, and to open 


ONLY FOOD OF THE RENEWED NATURE. 83 

the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and 
hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out 
of every kindred, and tongue, and people, 
and nation.” Rev. v. 9. For they have 
never been redeemed unto God by Christ’s 
blood—in that blood have never been 
washed from sin. 

Blessed indeed are they who hunger and 
thirst after this Christ-Bread—this Christ- 
Wine! 


CHRIST THE ONLY FOOD OF THE RENEWED 
NATURE. 

The command bidding Moses make “ the 
holy anointing oil ” closes with the anathe¬ 
ma, Whosoever compoundeth any like it, 
shall even be cut off from among his people. 
Much more, if any creature shall interpose 
between God and the soul, and attempt to 
compound a food to feed its life, will God 
cut off the innovater. Should this inno¬ 
vator be an apostle, or even an angel from 
heaven, even he could not escape the anath- 



84 


FEEDING ON CHRIST, 


ema. So saith an apostle: “Though we or 
an angel from heaven preach any other 
gospel unto you than that which we have 
preached unto you, let him be accursed.” Gal. 
i. 8. There is none other name under heav¬ 
en given among men whereby we must be 
saved. Acts iv. 12. 

He alone who creates a life can create 
the food to feed that life. God is the Cre¬ 
ator of all life, and he alone can give the 
food to feed the animal life and the vege¬ 
table life and every form of life. He is 
pre-eminently the Author of the life of God 
in the soul of man. And more than once 
did God call out of heaven to man, This 
is my Beloved Son, hear him ! Luke ix. 35. 
As we, in obedience to this Author of 
life, listen to the Son, we hear him ever 
calling men to himself: Come unto me. He 
that cometh unto me shall never hunger. Go 
anywhere else, apply to any one else, rely upon 
anything else, and your soul will starve. By 
no toils or tears, by no works wrought in 


ONLY FOOD OF THE RENEWED NATURE. 85 

your own strength, by no self-denials, no 
fastings, no hiding away in convent cells or 
monastic cloisters, can you compass the 
feeding of your soul. To the woman of 
Samaria, Jesus said, Whosoever drinketh 
of this water shall thirst again. But who¬ 
soever drinketh of the water that I shall 
give him shall never thirst; but the water 
that I shall give him shall be in him a well 
of water, springing up into everlasting 
life. John iv. 13, 14. 

“ In the last day, that great day of the 
feast, Jesus stood and cried, If any man 
thirst let him come unto me and drink.’’ 
John vii. 37. To me and to me only! “I 
am that bread of life.” John vi. 48. / and 

/ only ! Verily , verily , I say unto you , ex¬ 
cept ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and 
drink his blood , ye have no life in you. 
John vi. 53. Christ alone is the meat and 
drink of the renewed soul. 

When those poor women were starving 
in Samaria (2 Kings vi. 26-29), had there 


86 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


been a cruse of wine, a cluster of grapes, 
a crust of mouldy bread within their reach, 
they would not have resorted to the horrid 
expedient of giving up their darling babes 
to be eaten. And had God, in his infinite 
wisdom and pity for a starving world, seen 
in the wide realms of his universe any oth¬ 
er supply for its necessities, surely he 
would never have given up his only-be¬ 
gotten Son, to be bruised and put to grief, 
that men might eat his flesh and drink 
his blood. 

No mere formalities of service, no mere 
confession at the communion-table, no zeal 
in working, can make the soul fat and flour¬ 
ishing—can bring it up toward the measure 
of the stature of the fullness of Christ, and 
fill it with the fullness of God; nothing but 
feeding on Christ. We must feed upon 
his flesh, we must drink his blood. As mem¬ 
bers of his body we must draw into our¬ 
selves large supplies of the life of the body— 
as branches of the Vine we must eagerly 


THE SUP PL Y ABUNDANT,\ 8 f 

appropriate the vital sap that courses 
through the stem of the divine Vine! 


THE SUPPLY ABUNDANT. 

There is enough for each and enough for 
all. It must be so. For if God provides 
for the common wants of man and beast 
and bird, will he not much more for the 
being created anew by the power of the 
Holy Ghost and through application of 
the blood of his Son ? The streams have 
been flowing from the mountains ever since 
the earth was made, and the ocean receives 
as full supply to-day as when those streams 
began to flow. If God thus pours his watery 
treasures through meadow and plain to 
make the flowers glad, will he give “by 
measure ” to the flowers of piety with 
which he has caused his garden to bloom ? 
If the tribes of men and all the four-footed 
tribes, all creeping things and flying fowl, 
when they have drunk till they can drink 



88 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


no more, leave whole Amazons of crystal 
beverage yet flowing to the sea, shall there 
be stint or limit to the supply for thirsting 
souls? Every passing year a gracious God 
lays a whole earthful of fruit and grain at 
the feet of our twelve hundred millions of 
human beings; will he not then, with richer 
affluence still, pile bread upon the table of 
the children of faith? The sun, in God’s 
hand, has been all these ages flooding the 
earth with his beams, and that sun is as 
bright to-day as when it made the roses 
and lilies in Eden sparkle in its beams. 
But Christ the Son of God is God’s Sun 
also, the Sun of Righteousness, the right- 
eousness for which we hunger; nay, he is 
God himself. Hence there can be no re¬ 
cess in the believing heart which those 
holy beams may not fill, and through the 
wide world no new created nature, whether 
in palace or hovel, tent or cave, on whom 
and into whom these beams do not pour 
themselves. No fewer sunbeams come 


THE SUPPLY ABUNDANT. 


89 


upon my orchard because so many fall upon 
my neighbor’s. The treasures of this light 
that Enoch drank left none the less for 
Noah. The large measures that Moses 
appropriated left none the less for Elijah 
and Isaiah and Paul and John. The barrel 
of the widow of Zarephath was not a large 
one, her oil-cruse could hold but a small 
supply, and yet no draughts she made upon 
their contents left any the less behind. But 
in the barrel and cruse whence we drew 
our life, is all the fullness of the Godhead 
bodily. 

Scientists venture to assert that all the 
sunbeams that in far-off geologic ages fell 
upon those forests since turned into coal 
have been garnered up in that mineral as 
light and heat, and now all the furnaces and 
foundries are roaring with them, and all 
the factories are ringing with them, and all 
the steamers and railway trains are driven 
by them. Thus in our coal-mines lie em¬ 
bosomed the chief elements of our present 


9 o 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


splendid civilization. But in Jesus Christ, 
the Bread of God for the soul of man, is all 
the holy light and heat and life of God him¬ 
self. Embosomed in him are all the stores 
of the divine holiness. Is there not enough 
for a finite need in an infinite supply? Man¬ 
na was given in the desert and water gushed 
from the rock till human hunger and thirst 
hungered and thirsted no more. But that 
Rock was Christ, and that manna was Christ. 
Nay, God “ rained down manna ” in the des¬ 
ert (Ps. lxxviii. 24), and God bids, “ Seek the 
Lord till he come and rain righteousness 
upon you.” Hos. x. 12. And the rain had 
descended and the floods had come when 
He appeared who stood and cried, “ If any 
man thirst”—any man, anywhere—“let him 
come unto Me and drink!” Saith God, / 
will pour water upon him that is thirsty , and 
floods upon the dry ground. Isa. xliv. 3. 
And the pouring had come when God in 
the person of his Son said to men, He 
that believeth on me shall never thirst. John 


THE SUP PL V ABUNDANT. 


91 


vi. 35. The Bread of God , saith Jesus, is 
He which cometh down from heaven. But by 
the mouth of Paul, the Spirit saith, It 
pleased the Father that in him should all 
fullness dwell. Col. i. 19. All fullness 
is in him, and hence in him is an infinite 
supply. All fullness dwells in him, and 
hence the supply is inexhaustible. P'or 
after all have drunk and eaten, still the 
same fullness remains. Ft him dwelleth 
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Col. 
ii. 9)—in bodily fashion, in the flesh we are 
to eat, in the blood we are to drink. John 
vi. 53-55. Right well grounded, then, is the 
call of Jesus: “I am come into my garden, 
my sister, my spouse: I have gathered my 
myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my 
honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk 
my wine with my milk: eat, O friends; 
drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved.” 
Cant. v. 1. 


92 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


THE FOOD ACCESSIBLE. 

Abundant as is bread upon the earth, it 
is not always accessible to those who need 
it. Owing to the confusion introduced by 
sin and the dislocations perpetrated by it, 
the food is sometimes on one continent 
while the hunger is on another. The high¬ 
ways of Persia may be covered with the 
dead bodies of men, women and children 
starved to death, while at the same time 
the highways of our happy republic are 
filled with wagons loaded with grain. In 
the city palace there is bread and to spare, 
while in the city lane children go supper¬ 
less to bed. 

Sad to say, owing to Christian supineness 
and lack of self-denying zeal, while to-day 
in Christian lands there is an abundance 
of spiritual food, in China and India and 
Africa souls are starving by tens of thou¬ 
sands. But to any who may read these 
lines this Christ-food is more accessible 


THE FOOD ACCESSIBLE. 


93 


than the bread upon the family table. It 
is before you and behind you, on your right 
hand and on your left. No need for us to 
ask, “ Who shall ascend into heaven (that 
is, to bring Christ down from above) ? or who 
shall descend into the deep (that is, to bring 
up Christ again from the dead) ? The word 
is nigh thee.” Rom. x. 6-8. Will a mother 
say to her hungry child, “ Why do you cry 
so in my ears for bread ? Go and eat and 
be filled,” when she knows very well that 
there is not a crumb of bread within reach 
of the suffering one? Did Hagar in the 
wilderness of Beer-sheba, when the water 
in the bottle was spent, say to her boy, 
“Drink now and cry no more.” No, she 
laid him far off under the meagre shade 
of the shrub to die, while she lifted up her 
voice and wept in the anguish of a mother’s 
heart. But the heart of Jesus is more ten¬ 
der toward his thirsting children than Ha- 
gar’s toward her famishing boy. “ Can a 
mother forget her sucking child, that she 


94 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


should not have compassion on the son of 
her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will 
I not forget thee.” Isa. xlix. 15. Then 
surely he would not call and iterate and 
reiterate the call, “ Come unto me and 
drink;” “He that cometh unto me shall 
never hunger, he that believeth on me 
shall never thirst;” “Eat, O friends, drink, 
yea, drink abundantly, O beloved,” unless 
the bread and the wine were near at hand. 
We sit under his shadow, and all above us, 
within our reach, are the apples and citrons 
sweet to the taste. He has brought us into 
his banquet-house. Around us is spread a 
feast—a feast of fat things full of marrow, 
of wines on the lees, well refined. When 
Paul prayed that we might be filled with 
the fullness of God, he well knew that 
Christ, God’s fullness, was within our reach. 
Christ complained, not there was no bread 
at hand to feed the life of the soul, but that 
men woidd not come to the table and eat. 
John v. 40. If any Israelite in the desert 


THE FOOD ACCESSIBLE. 


95 


went unfed, it was not because the manna 
did not lie thick around his tent, but be¬ 
cause he neglected to gather it. If any 
man went thirsty there, it was because he 
neglected to dip his cup into the rock- 
stream that flowed sparkling by. And if 
to-day there is lack of the stalwart piety 
of old heroic times, if one is pale and an¬ 
other weak, one sickly and one asleep, this 
one with head bowed like the bulrush, that 
one sighing, “ Oh my leanness! 7ny lea7i- 
ness r any one moaning— 

“ ’Tis a point I long to know— 

Oft it causes anxious thought— 

Do I love the Lord, or no? 

Am I his, or am I not ? 


“ If I love, why am I thus ? 

Why this dull and lifeless frame? 
Hardly, sure, can they be worse 
Who have never heard his name. 

“ Could my heart so hard remain, 
Prayer a task and burden prove. 
Every trifle give me pain, 

If I knew a Saviour’s love? 


9 6 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


“ When I turn my eyes within, 

All is dark, and vain, and wild; 

Filled with unbelief and sin, 

Can I deem myself a child? 

“ If I pray, or hear, or read, 

Sin is mixed with all I do; 

You who love the Lord indeed, 

Tell me, is it thus with you ?” 

—it is not because the manna does not lie in 
rich abundance around the tent of each one ) 
but because he neglects to gather and feed 
upon it. The food is abundant, and as ac¬ 
cessible as it is abundant. 

Those hungering and thirsting after the 
Christ-food are ever encamped at Elim, 
where are more than twelve wells of 
water, and more than threescore and ten 
palm trees. 


THE CHRIST-FOOD SATISFYING. 

It is all-satisfying. Of what other food 
can this be said? Not of food for the 
body. The body of a woman was found 



THE CHRIST-FOOD SATISFYING. 


97 


in a city garret, clad in rags and pale in 
death, and the verdict of the coroner’s 
jury was “died of starvation.” Poor soul! 
when a child in her mother’s house the 
hand of love fed her to the full. But, 
alas ! the feeding did not last. Elijah, in 
the strength of the meal the angel served to 
him under the juniper tree, went forty days, 
i Kings xix. 4-8. But what are forty days 
to a lifetime ? The hour came when Elijah 
was as hungry as ever. Feed the covetous 
man with gold till he can no longer find a 
place to store it; make him as rich as Cras- 
sus and Croesus combined; feed the am¬ 
bitious man with power till his word rules 
a world; feed the one greedy of fame till 
his name has become a household word in 
millions of houses; and the famous man 
will pine for fuller applause, and the am¬ 
bitious man weep for more worlds to rule, 
and the covetous man will still passionately 
call for gold! gold ! more gold! 

But hear the word of Jesus: “I am the 
7 


9 8 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


Bread of life!' “ I am the living Bread—” 
Bread that lives within the one who feeds 
upon it, lives there as bread to satisfy every 
craving; a well of water in him, springing 
into the life, unto everlasting life. John iv. 
14. “He that cometh unto me shall never 
hunger;” “Whoso drinketh of the water 
that I shall give him shall never thirst.” 
John vi. 35; iv. 14. 

Think of it! meat and drink to feed all 
the hungerings and all the Burstings of 
man’s ever-craving nature ! He that eat- 
eth of any other food whatever may yet 
starve. He that drinketh of any other 
fountain whatever may yet die of thirst. 
But he that eateth and drinketh of the 
Bread of God, which is Jesus Christ, shall 
never thirst nor hunger. But never is a 
long time. Our heart was once broken 
at the cry of a young widow as, sitting by 
the corpse of her husband, long a drunk¬ 
en, profligate, blaspheming man, cut off in 
the twinkling of an eye, she filled the room 


THE CHR 1 ST-F 00 D SATISFYING . 


99 


with her wail: “ Oh, for ever is so long, so 



for ever is so long H Yes, for ever 


is very long. But whoso eateth and drink- 
eth of the Christ-food shall hunger no more 
for ever. Not in this life, for “ the Lord is 
his Shepherd, and he shall not want.” Ps. 
xxiii. He will ever lead through the green 
pastures and beside the still waters. Not 
in death. 

“ All my capacious powers can wish 
In thee most richly meet; 

Nor to mine eyes is light so dear, 

Nor friendship half so sweet. 

“ I’ll speak the honors of thy name 
With my last, laboring breath; 

Then speechless clasp thee in mine arms, 

The antidote of death.” 

And surely not in heaven, in our home 
among the many mansions; for 


“ There we shall see his face, 
And never, never sin; 


There, from the riches of his grace, 
Drink endless pleasures in.” 


IOO 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


O Father of Jesus, feed my hungry, 
thirsty, ever-living soul with this ever-liv¬ 
ing Bread! 


THE WELCOME. 

The food is abundant, it is accessible and 
it is all-satisfying. Is there a cordial wel¬ 
come for me at that table ? There, in that 
princely mansion, a sumptuous feast is 
spread, and this one and that one is 
greeted by the host with a warm grasp 
of the hand and a most cordial welcome. 
But this one is a magistrate, that one a 
learned counselor; this one a great captain, 
that one a world-renowned artist; this one a 
poet, that one a statesman; but I am only a 
neighbor, unknown and poor. I am here 
upon a general invitation. Am I as wel¬ 
come? I may eat and drink. Common 
hospitality and courtesy forbid my exclu¬ 
sion—forbid any manifest coldness of greet- 



THE WELCOME. 


IOI 


ing. But is not the host a little surprised 
to see me there, and a little chagrined? It 
is the welcome that gives sauce to the food 
and flavor to the viands. Am I welcome ? 
Perhaps not there, but most surely here. 
The invitation is ample, and Jesus Christ 
does not know how to be other than sin¬ 
cere. And his invitation, if general, is also 
personal. It is addressed to me as honestly 
and sincerely as to John or Paul. Further, 
this is a family feast. Is any child less wel¬ 
come than another to a father’s table ? Was 
any one less welcome than another to the 
manna and the water in the desert? And 
if the same to one as to another, was it not 
most cordial to all ? Why did God, with the 
anthems of heaven ringing in his ears and 
all the bright spirit-forms of heaven before 
his eyes, come down to earth to bid Moses 
to that wondrous task, the smiting of the 
rock, and why each morning new create a 
manna shower, if his very heart was not 
in the eating and drinking of the food by 


102 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


his children? Why, unless bright eyes and 
ruddy cheeks and strong frames were more 
pleasant in his sight than pallor and weak¬ 
ness and starvation? Why, unless his fa¬ 
therly heart gladdened at their putting 
away their sighing and pining, and taking 
up the harp and song of joy and thanks¬ 
giving? And what has he put upon the 
table before our craving souls? What but 
his own Son—brought to that table gar¬ 
landed with all the glories of the divine 
human nature, wreathed with all flowers 
of his beneficence, through toils and tears, 
through sweat and blood, through scourg¬ 
ing and crucifying? 

Welcome! If God ever grieves it is 
when men refuse to eat, and hardly less 
when his children satisfy themselves with a 
crumb or two, a fig and a grape, when their 
needs require a hearty and abundant feeding. 

Welcome! Why otherwise has he by his 
Spirit called out from among their fellows 
thousands of men, and bidden them do 


THE WELCOME. 


103 


nothing else all their lives but invite men 
to this table, and, when they are there, 
labor to induce them to eat to the full 
by unfolding to them all the treasures of 
holiness, beauty and power this food will 
impart to those who eat according to their 
needs. He has made a great supper, and 
sent out his servants at supper-time along 
the highways and among the hedges to 
invite, urge and compel them to come in, 
and then stands and cries, “Eat, O friends; 
drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved.” 

Welcome! There in that family is a boy 
pale and growing paler, thin and becoming 
thinner, haggard and waxing more haggard 
still. He has no appetite. He loathes the 
sight of food. Every device within compass 
of parental love has exhausted itself to pro¬ 
cure meat or fruit to tempt the appetite of 
that child, and all in vain. Medical skill has 
gone to its wits’ end to create an appetite in 
that wasting form; all in vain. And now, lo! 
in some bright hour the child asks for food. 


104 FEEDING ON CHRIST. 

Is there now a welcome for that child at the 
family table? Welcome! welcome! Why, 
tears of joy rain down the cheeks of father 
and mother as they hear his call. With every 
mouthful he takes they give forth a hearty 
“ Thank God !” And think you there is 
lack of hearty welcome on the part of 
God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, when, af¬ 
ter having at such sacrifice provided food 
for the soul, after a watch and care often 
of many years, he, by the new creation, has 
induced an appetite, these children of faith 
are found eating and drinking with hearty 
relish ? Can God bear the sight of so much 
sickly weakness among his saints, such pale 
faces and emaciated forms, such want of 
love, joy, peace and all the Christian 
graces, when the food to supply all these 
is so abundant and so accessible ? It is the 
discipline, strength, and courage and prow¬ 
ess of the legion that fills the heart of the 
Imperator with pride. It is the fine form, 
the blooming cheek, the manly, womanly 


THE WELCOME. 


105 


power of the children, that fills the parent’s 
heart with joy. And it is the full-hearted 
Christliness, such as can come only by a 
constant and abundant feeding on the 
Bread of God, that makes Heaven glad. 
What means the sigh from the heart of 
God?—“My well-beloved hath a vineyard 
in a very fruitful hill: and he fenced it, 
and gathered out the stones thereof, and 
planted it with the choicest vine, and built 
a tower in the midst of it, and also made a 
winepress therein: and he looked that it 
should bring forth grapes, and it brdught 
forth wild grapes. What could have been 
done more to my vineyard, that I have 
not done in it? wherefore, when I looked 
that it should bring forth grapes, brought 
it forth wild grapes?” Isa. (v. 1, 2, 4). 
It means weariness and disgust at the 
feebleness of piety in the Church; such 
profusion of profession joined with such 
penury of practice; such abounding 
imperfections, such worldliness; truths 


io6 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


in the creed that might kindle life under the 
ribs of death, and a life so little unlike death. 
In the bosom of God there is a kind of loath¬ 
ing of such Laodiceanism. “ I would, saith 
the Spirit, thou wert either cold or hot”— 
anything but this lukewarmness. Rev. iii. 
15. Welcome to the Bread of God, that, 
taken into the life, feeds it with the beau¬ 
ty and power of holiness! Yes, ten thou¬ 
sand times ten thousand welcomes! 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 

At the word of Jesus, “The bread that 
I will give is my flesh, which I will give for 
the life of the world,” the Jews exclaimed, 
“ How can this man give us his flesh to eat ?” 
John vi. 51, 52. But devout meditation will 
easily feel its way to the proper solution 
of the question. To lay hold of a practical 
conception of the process expressed by the 
terms feeding on Christ, eating his flesh and 
drinking his blood, we must, of course, dis- 



FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


107 


miss from our minds all the grosser notions 
involved in the common modes of eating 
and drinking, and find our way to an idea 
more spiritual and fundamental. Our ani¬ 
mal natures really partake of food, not 
when we pass it through the mouth into 
possession of the digestive organs, but 
when the blood, which is the life , gathers 
its essence into itself and distributes it 
through the frame. And feeding on the 
Bread of God, on Jesus Christ, in the 
more comprehensive sense of the term, 
consists in transferring or receiving him 
into the life of the soul. In this act or 
process the renewed nature appropriates 
to the use of the soul all of Christ that is 
within its reach—his obedience, his atone¬ 
ment, his grace in all its fullness. While 
Christ as a righteousness out of ourselves, 
furnished to us for our justification, is not 
an object of spiritual hunger and thirst, for 
as such he is already in our possession, 
yet even as such we feed on him when 


io8 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


under the teaching and illumination of 
the Holy Spirit we gain new insight into 
the fullness and completeness of his work 
in our behalf, and of its effect upon us in 
removing our sins from us far as the east 
is from the west—when we acquire fresh 
and more vivid assurance that for us in 
all the wide universe, in time and eternity, 
there is no condemnation . 

But the chief object of the hunger and 
thirst of the beatitude is Christ as our 
sanctification— Christ in us the hope of 
glory . For our justification—that is, for 
our pardon and acceptance with God—on 
the part of God, the righteousness of 
Christ is imputed to us; on our part, it is 
accepted by us . For our sanctification 
the grace of Christ is on the part of God 
implanted in us, and on our part fed upon 
by us. In both cases two spirits are at 
work—the Spirit of God in giving, and the 
spirit of man in receiving. In the language 
of an excellent old work, Fisher's Catechism , 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 109 

“ The matter of justification is the right¬ 
eousness of Christ; but the matter of our 
sanctification is the fullness of Christ com¬ 
municated, or grace imparted from him out 
of whose fullness we receive, and grace for 
grace.” John i. 16. Further, from the same, 
“Christ himself and not the believer is the 
subject of our justifying righteousness. It 
is inherently in him, but the believer him¬ 
self is the subject of the righteousness of 
sanctification. It is implanted in him as a 
new nature.” We feed on Christ in a high 
and holy sense as the matter of our sanc¬ 
tification, as that holiness which makes us 
holy, when, through him, as he dwells in 
us, we grow more and more into his like¬ 
ness, and we die more and more unto sin 
and live more and more unto righteous¬ 
ness. Thus, as we take the essence of 
our food into our animal life, so we take 
Christ as our sanctification into our spir¬ 
itual life. And so of God, “ Christ is made 
unto us sanctification.” i Cor. i. 30. 


iio 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


A child may be said to feed upon his 
father. That father is his model. That 
father is his example. The spirit and cha¬ 
racter of the father are reproduced in the 
son. The son repeats his father’s lan¬ 
guage, takes up his father’s opinions, acts 
over again his father’s acts. His moral 
life feeds on his father—sometimes to his 
undoing, sometimes to his honor, some¬ 
times to his salvation. So the renewed 
nature feeds on Christ. Christ is the be¬ 
liever’s model. Christ is his example. He 
appropriates the life and character of Christ. 
He thinks the thoughts of Christ. He 
speaks the words of Christ. He beams, 
glows, palpitates with Christ. His spirit¬ 
ual pulse-beat answers to Christ’s heart- 
throb. 

The agent in furnishing Christ to the 
soul as its food is the Holy Spirit. For 
the little child—that miracle of form, fea¬ 
ture and life—some one must prepare 
food; to the little one some one must 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


111 


bring the food, else its body will waste 
away and its life will pass away. But no 
new-born babe is in itself more helpless 
than in itself is the renewed soul. Food 
must be provided for it—food adapted to 
its wants. And this food must be brought 
to it; and, further still, ability must be given 
to it to partake of that food. Now, God has 
furnished the Bread from heaven. Here 
it is, abundant, accessible and all-satisfy¬ 
ing. Now comes in the agency of the 
Holy Ghost. His first act is to create the 
man anew in Christ Jesus, and thus the 
appetite is implanted. Then he may stim¬ 
ulate that appetite till, as the hart panteth 
after the water-brooks, the soul shall pant 
for the Bread of heaven. But the hungry 
child may starve to death in the same room 
with its food. And the soul may pant and 
pine with abundance of food in sight un¬ 
less the Holy Spirit present the food and 
enable the soul to feed upon it. 

And this feeding the soul with Christ as 


1 12 FEEDING ON CHRIST. 

its sanctification, as the food, the nourish¬ 
ing, sustaining power—nay, the very life of 
all that is holy in man—is a chief, we had 
almost said the only, work of the Holy 
Ghost within the believing heart. This 
truth, respecting the official work of the 
Holy Spirit, was richly unfolded by Christ 
himself as he sat at the table with the 
bread which was his body at his one 
hand, and the cup which was his blood 
at the other—the cup and the bread the 
one only food of the regenerated soul. 
There he said, “ I will pray the Father, 
and he shall give you another Comforter, 
that he may abide with you for ever; even 
the Spirit of truth, whom the world can¬ 
not receive, because it seeth him not, 
neither knoweth him: but ye know him; 
for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in 
you.” John xiv. 16, 17. Further on in this 
discourse he specifies the object for which 
the Comforter was to come: “ But the Com¬ 
forter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 113 

Father will send in my name, he shall teach 
you all things, and bring all things to your 
remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto 
you.” John xiv. 26. And then (in chap. xvi. 
13-15) the whole work of the Comforter 
is fully expounded in a brief, precious sum¬ 
mary : “Howbeit, when he, the Spirit of truth, 
is come, he will guide you into all truth: for 
he shall not speak of himself; but whatso¬ 
ever he shall hear, that shall he speak; and 
he will show you things to come. He shall 
glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and 
shall show it unto you. All things that the 
Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that 
he shall take of mine, and shall show it 
unto you.” 

The Spirit of God is here called the 
Spirit of truth —the Spirit officially put in 
charge of the truth for its administration, 
for its ministration to man. But, saith 
Jesus, “I am the truth!' The Spirit of 
truth is the Spirit of Christ for the min¬ 
istration of the truth—Christ—to the new 


114 FEEDING ON CHRIST. 

man. He is sent to guide you —all you 
who believe —into all truth. Not abso¬ 
lutely all truth—not into the truth of as¬ 
tronomy and botany and political econ¬ 
omy, but into all the truth—into that 
truth which is emphatically the truth. This 
is the truth about the Son of God—nay, 
which is the Son of God. 

There is a storehouse of meat and drink, 
grains, fruits and fountains. Yonder a stag¬ 
gering, starving man is groping about for 
meat and drink. And here comes the 
angel of charity to take the sufferer by 
the hand and guide him into the treasure- 
house. He leads him into all food; yes, in 
to it. And God has stored up an infinite 
treasure of soul-food in his slain, risen Son, 
and now, saith Jesus, God sends in the per¬ 
son of the Holy Ghost a guide to take the 
hungering, thirsting soul by the hand and 
lead him into—in unto—all the truth respect¬ 
ing the work and worth of the Messiah. 
Put your hand in that hand if you too are 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 115 

hungering and thirsting after righteous¬ 
ness, and you will soon find your way to 
fullness. 

, The Spirit is a teacher. “ He shall teach 
you”—all you believers—“all things”—not 
things about the affairs of time and sense, 
but about Immanuel. He is a teacher 
nigh at hand: “ He dwelleth with you and 
shall be in you.” He is a teacher equipped 
with all knowledge : “ The Spirit searcheth 
all things, yea, the deep things of God;” 
“He revealeth the deep and secret things, 
he knoweth what is in the darkness, and 
the light dwelleth with him.” The light 
dwelleth with him , and he dwelleth with 
us. And this teacher is invested with all 
power over the mind and heart of the 
pupil. Mind is his realm. Hearts are 
his subjects. A Spirit, he deals with spirits. 

How heavily and often the faithful teacher 
sighs over the dullness of his pupil! Oh, 
he cries, could I but infuse musical powers 
into this unmusical soul, mathematical talent 


II6 FEEDING ON CHRIST. 

into this, quickness of apprehension and 
retentiveness of memory into that plodding 
creature ! But what he cannot do with his 
pupil the great Teacher can do with his. 
He can quicken and strengthen all the 
powers of mind and heart; he teaches 
in the fullest sense of the word; he causes 
to know. Knowledge is insight, compre¬ 
hension, possession of the truth. We do 
not know a thing when we merely hear 
about it or read of it. When we know a 
thing, we have mastered it. Jesus said at 
the table in that prayer which has been well 
called the “ Holy of Holies ” of the new 
dispensation: “ This is life eternal, that 
they might know thee the only true God, 
and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.” 
John xvii. 3. This, then, is something 
more than reading or hearing of God 
and Christ—something more even than 
writing the truths of Christ and God as 
so many articles in our creeds and cate¬ 
chisms. It is a heart-possession of, a 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. ny 

soul-feeding upon, those truths. It is the 
work of the Holy Ghost as a teacher to 
convey this knowledge into the soul, and 
put as it were the arms of the soul’s com¬ 
prehension around those truths. It was 
for this profound and soul-feeding know¬ 
ledge that Paul was ever sighing: “ But what 
things were gain to me, those I counted loss 
for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and I count all 
things but loss for the excellency of the 
knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for 
whom I have suffered the loss of all things, 
and do count them but dung, that I may 
win Christ, and be found in him, not hav¬ 
ing mine own righteousness, which is of 
the law, but that which is through the 
faith of Christ, the righteousness which is 
of God by faith: that I may know him, 
and the power of his resurrection, and the 
fellowship of his sufferings, being made con¬ 
formable unto his death; if by any means I 
might attain unto the resurrection of the 
dead. Not as though I had already at- 


118 FEEDING ON CHRIST. 

tained, either were already' perfect: but I 
follow after, if that I may apprehend that 
for which also I am apprehended of Christ 
Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to 
have apprehended: but this one thing I 
do, forgetting those things which are be¬ 
hind, and reaching forth unto those things 
which are before, I press toward the mark 
for the prize of the high calling of God 
in Christ Jesus.” Phil. iii. 7-14. 

It was for intimate, thorough heart-know¬ 
ledge of Christ Jesus that Paul so hungered. 
It was knowledge of the power of his re¬ 
surrection. It was conscious apprehension 
of that for which Christ had apprehended 
him. Toward this knowledge he ever 
pressed, hungering for this bread, thirst¬ 
ing for this cup, reaching forth one hand 
to grasp the former, and the other hand 
to grasp the latter. 

Knowledge feeds the mind. Ideas, thought, 
truths nourish the mental nature. Fed with 
this nutriment, the mental powers develop. 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


ll 9 

Every teacher is a feeder; the Spirit of God 
as a teacher feeds the new man with 
knowledge of Jesus Christ. 

The Spirit also quickens the recollection . 
Jesus said at the table, “He shall bring all 
things to your remembrance, whatsoever 
I have said unto you!' John xiv. 21. The 
memory stores away our experiences. But 
the memory may be a mere lumber-room, 
where a thousand things are hidden away 
that do us no good. They are in the 
memory, but not in the recollection—in 
the memory, but not before the mind. 
Now a truth, so far as any present influ¬ 
ence on us is concerned, may as well be 
in a volume beyond the sea as in the 
memory and out of the recollection. It 
is only when a thought is before the 
mind’s eye, in the present consciousness, 
that it is a force, that it acts on the heart, 
in the experience and conduct. If the 
thought of a terrible object is before me, 
I tremble. The thought of a beautiful 


120 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


object sends a warm glow through my 
frame. If back upon my mind comes the 
thought of some sore bereavement, my 
tears start again. But it is only when a 
thought, a truth, an image is now present 
to my mind’s eye that emotions start. 

Hence the importance and value of the 
Spirit’s work as a reminder. He goes 
into the chambers of the memory, and 
brings out the treasures there and plants 
them in the present consciousness. He 
gathers before the mind’s eye the pre¬ 
cious things of our past experience — all 
we have ever thought and felt of the 
power, beauty and glory of Christ, all 
the precious words he has ever spoken 
to us—making our hearts burn within us 
by the way; re-presents to view what we 
have seen of Christ in the closet, at the 
communion-table, in revivals of religion, 
when the very air was full of Christ; re¬ 
gathers to our view all we have ever con¬ 
ceived of the work of Christ—his works 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


121 


and woes, his beauties and glories, all the 
ineffable wealth of his Messiahship, all 
the healing power of this balm for the 
wounds of the soul. In so doing the Holy 
Spirit feeds us over again with the food 
we have eaten in days and years bygone. 

The great work of the Spirit is to feed 
the soul, and in so doing to glorify Christ. 
Not to add to his essential glory, but to 
unfold that glory to the soul for its admi¬ 
ration and appropriation. “ He shall take 
of mine”—take up all the glories of my 
work, nature, relation to you, and adapt¬ 
edness to your wants, and make you see 
it all. Now, when we gaze with admiration 
on a beautiful character we are drawn in 
some degree into imitation of that cha¬ 
racter. We are by nature chameleons; 
we take on the hue of what we admire. 
The laurels of Miltiades would not suffer 
Themistocles to sleep; he could not rest 
till like laurels wreathed his own brow. 
Catiline moulded those whom he gathered 


122 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


round him into other Catilines. Vision 
of the glories of Christ transforms into 
his image. But this is not all. The Holy 
Spirit loves the glory of Christ, and loves 
to see it reproduced in those his blood has 
ransomed, and he works in man this repro¬ 
duction. The sunbeams love the sun and 
as far as their nature allows turn planets 
and asteroids into other though lesser suns. 
The love and aim of the Holy Ghost is to 
turn believers into other, though lesser 
Christs. Thus it is that the Spirit of God 
enables us to feed on Christ and take him 
into our life. It is for this the more ad¬ 
vanced Christian soul hungers and thirsts, 
and blessed, thrice blessed are such souls. 

The organ by which we thus feed our 
new nature is Faith . 

The Holy Ghost takes of the things of 
Christ and shows them to the soul. Now, 
when in the name of charity you enter the 
house of a poor, hungering family, and take 
from your basket the welcome loaf and 



FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


123 


show it to the mother, what act on the 
mothers part is sure to follow ? What 
but the forthputting of the hand to take 
the loaf? When to a devoutly hungering, 
thirsting soul the Spirit shows the Saviour— 
shows him as just what the soul needs, as 
the food, and the only food, that can feed 
its cravings—what follows if not an instant 
and thankful appropriation ? Thus faith is 
the faculty that appropriates. When food 
for the body is passed into possession of 
the appropriate organs, some mysterious 
power distributes its essence among the 
various cravings of the animal nature for 
its nourishment and upbuilding. When the 
Holy Spirit passes the Christ-bread to the 
hungering soul, by faith it takes that food 
which now passes into the soul’s better life, 
to augment the force of that life and make 
the soul Christ-like. Thus faith is a power 
of spiritual assimilation. This faith is a 
persuasion, a vivid conviction, that Christ, 
as offered in the gospel, is a complete 


124 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


remedy for all the spiritual ills of man—that, 
appropriated by the soul, he hinders, chains, 
cripples its depravities, and sets the powers 
free from their tyrannous domination to go 
forth in all holy activities. Sin lurks in every 
soul like a serpent in the grass, ever ready 
to infuse its venom into our thoughts, aims, 
purposes, motives and affections; it lurks 
.like a lion in the jungles, ever ready to 
spring upon the man and drag him to the 
ground. “ I know that in me, that is in my 
flesh, dwelleth no good thing.” Rom. vii. 18. 
“ But Christ was manifest to destroy the 
works of the devil.” John iii. 8. And faith 
recognizes his ability and his readiness to 
do in the soul that for which he was man¬ 
ifested. It appropriates him as the antag¬ 
onist of sin. Sin is the wound, Christ is 
the balm; and faith lays the balm to the 
wound. Sin is a power, and Christ is a 
power; and faith, acknowledging the soul’s 
utter helplessness in itself, puts this Christ- 
power into antagonism with the sin-power. 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


125 


Thus the Spirit shows Christ to the soul, 
and by faith the new man feeds on Christ, 
and becomes mighty over the world, the 
flesh and the devil—mighty for God and 
good, and happy in its might. 

Faith is an eye. By faith we see. “ By 
faith Moses forsook Egypt, not fearing the 
wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing 
Him who is invisible.” Heb. xi. 27. It is by 
faith we gain access “ to this grace wherein 
we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of 
God!' Rom. v. 2. The Spirit takes of the 
things of Christ and shows them to the 
soul, and it beholds his glory, and in the 
gazing it is transformed into his image. 
“We all, with open face, beholding as in a 
glass the glory of the Lord, are changed 
into the same image from glory to glory, 
even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” 2 Cor. 
iii. 18. Gaze upon the picture limned for 
us in these lines. First there is a glass, a 
mirror, a reflecting glass. Into that mirror 
the Christian is gazing. But the object he 


126 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


sees is not his own face and form, but a 
glory like that over the mercy-seat between 
the cherubim. It is the glory of the Lord. 
Back out of that glass upon the gazer come 
beams of glory that not only illuminate, but 
also actually transform, him into likeness to 
the object in the glass. The longer he thus 
gazes the more thorough the transformation 
from one degree of glory unto another, and 
higher. 

The face of the gazer has been veiled. 
But when he turned to the Lord (v. 16) the 
veil was taken away. One drops a diamond 
pin some evening on the carpet in his dress¬ 
ing-room. Standing between it and the gas- 
jet, his form intercepts the light and the pin 
is invisible. But now he turns, he changes 
his position, and lo ! the diamond gleams like 
an angel’s eye. That diamond is Christ. 
That man is the soul at first, not yet turned 
to the Lord. But now he turns and sees 
the Christ-diamond, and eagerly appro¬ 
priates him. 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


127 


The object of the vision is the glory of 
the Lord. The Lord is Christ. The glory 
is the glory of Christ. What a glory! It is 
the glory of a perfect manhood. It is the 
glory of the Godhead. It is the blended 
glory of Godhead and manhood. It is the 
glory of a perfect fulfillment of the law 
under which all men are born—the only 
glory of the kind ever achieved among 
the sons of men. It is the glory of heroic 
endurance and self-sacrifice—the glory of 
the atonement. It is the glory of an infinite 
holiness, of infinite beauty, of infinite power. 
What a glory is here ! 

The effect of this gazing is transforma¬ 
tion into the same image. Beholding, he 
is transformed. He is penetrated and 
moulded. He is glorified without and 
within. Among the countless Madonnas 
in the galleries of the Old World there is 
one with the holy Child in the lap, and 
from the Child beams are streaming which 
light up the faces and forms of the whole 


128 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


group of beholders. It is a very happy 
conception. It seems to embody the very 
idea of Paul. As we gaze on the glory 
of Christ we are bathed with that glory. 
As the young artist gazes on the works of 
Raphael and Guido and Michael Angelo, 
that his spirit may catch somewhat of the 
fire that blazes in them, so the Christian 
gazes on Christ, that he may be bathed in 
his life and penetrated by it. 

The change is progressive—from glory to 
glory. Regeneration is instantaneous, jus¬ 
tification is instantaneous, sanctification is 
progressive. Justification is an act. Sanc¬ 
tification is a work. First the blade, then 
the ear, and then the full corn in the ear. 
First the dawn, then the sunrise, and then 
the broad, bright day. They go from 
strength to strength . Paul at Damascus, a 
poor, blind, feeble believer; Paul at Rome, 
exclaiming, “ I know whom I have believed/’ 
It is a walking on and on in the light, deeper 
and deeper into the light, the blood of Jesus 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 129 

the while cleansing from sin. i John i. 7. 
The agent in this process of glorification 
is the Holy Spirit —“As by the Spirit of 
the Lords 

It is the Spirit that discloses the vision. 
It is the Spirit that tears away the veil and 
enables us to turn to the Lord. It is he 
that makes the Spirit penetrable to the 
beams. It is he that disposes and enables 
us to gaze. The glory is the glory of the 
Lord. The Spirit is the Spirit of the Lord. 
So the Spirit is in the beams, and hence their 
transforming power. And thus it is we feed 
our souls with Christ. 

Faith is the organ by which the food is 
appropriated. We are “sanctified by faith.” 
Acts xxvi. 18. The faith may be weak, like 
that of Thomas, who must feel the wounds 
in the hands and side of the Lord ere he 
would believe. It may be strong like that 
of Abraham. 

Sometimes, owing to disease, a man is dis¬ 
abled from taking food except in the small- 
9 


130 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


est portions. Some have even starved from 
this cause. The believer with a weak faith 
is such a patient. He can appropriate of 
Christ only just enough to save the soul. 
But the Spirit can enlarge the faith. “ Lord, 
increase our faith ” is a most fitting petition 
for us all. And he can so increase it that 
we can take in a whole Christ. He can 
impart a faith that shall apply the balm to 
all the soul's wounds. He can make us 
competent, through faith, to such a feed¬ 
ing on Christ that, according to our human 
capacities, we may be filled with all the 
fullness of God. O Blessed Spirit! help 
us all to such a feeding. 

o 


FILLED WITH CHRIST. 

“ Blessed are they which do hunger and 
thirst after righteousness, for they shall be 
filled.” But Christ is that righteousness. 
Of God he is made unto us sanctification, 
internal righteousness, holiness. 



FILLED WITH CHRIST 131 

Filled with Christ! The body filled, for 
the body is the temple of the Holy Ghost : 
“ Know ye not that your bodies are the 
members of Christ?” i Cor. vi. 15. “Our 
bodies,” writes Dr. Charles Hodge on this 
passage, “are the members of Christ, be¬ 
cause they belong to him, being included 
in the redemption effected by his blood, 
and also because they are so united to him 
as to be partakers of his life.” And the 
mind filled with Christ—the fancy, the imag¬ 
ination, the judgment, the reasoning pow¬ 
ers, the will, the affections, the whole man. 

On that field full of drooping flowers, 
sorely parched under the summer sun, God 
sends down a pouring rain. The precious 
nectar from the clouds sinks into the earth, 
nestles around the rootlets of the famishing 
plants, finds its way through the root into the 
stem, through the stem into the branches, 
through the branches into the leaves and 
petals, and fills the whole being of the plant. 
The plant is saturated. And this is the pre- 


I3 2 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


cise meaning of the word “filled” in the be¬ 
atitude. Blessed are they which do hunger 
and thirst after righteousness, for they shall 
be saturated. Only think of a soul satu¬ 
rated with Christ! Only think of a Church 
composed of Christ-saturated members ! 

The dispensation under which we live is 
pre-eminently that of the Holy Spirit. The 
work of preparing the soul-food was com¬ 
pleted when Jesus ascended on high, and 
from that time the Spirit has been carrying 
on the great work of feeding souls with the 
Bread of God. And the plentifulness of this 
feeding, this saturation with righteousness, 
was among the choicest and most frequent 
themes of the bards of old. Hosea tells 
of God’s coming to rain righteousness on 
believers. Hos. x. 12. By the mouth of 
Isaiah (xliv. 3, 4) God promised to “pour 
water upon him that is thirsty, and floods 
upon the dry ground.” This water is his 
Spirit, which he will pour on Israel’s seed, 
which seed we are—his blessing on Israel’s 


FILLED WITH CHRIST. 


133 


offspring, which offspring we are. “And 
they shall spring up as among the grass, 
and as willows by the water-courses.” And 
as willows by the water-courses are satu¬ 
rated with moisture, so shall they be with 
righteousness who hunger and thirst there¬ 
for. Elsewhere the same prophet specifies 
in exquisite terms the effect of this outpour¬ 
ing upon the soul: “And the work of right¬ 
eousness shall be peace; and the effect of 
righteousness, quietness and assurance for 
ever.” Isa. xxxii. 17. Nor is Ezekiel be¬ 
hind Isaiah in the beauty of his imagery 
when treating upon this charming theme: 
“ And I will make them and the places round 
about my hill a blessing; and I will cause 
the shower to come down in his season; 
there shall be showers of blessing.” Ezek. 
xxxiv. 26. Malachi, two hundred years 
nearer the rising of the “ Day-star from on 
high,” writes: “ Bring ye all the tithes into the 
storehouse, that there may be meat in mine 
house, and prove me now herewith, saith 


134 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you 
the windows of heaven, and pour you out 
a blessing, that there shall not be room 
enough to receive it.” Mai. iii. io. Yes, the 
hungering, thirsting ones shall be so filled 
that there shall be no room to receive 
more. 

And what kind of a filling was before the 
eye of the apostle Paul he takes care in 
many a place to inform us. For the saints 
which were at Ephesus, and for all the faith¬ 
ful in Christ Jesus, he prays: “Wherefore I 
also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord 
Jesus, and love unto all the saints, cease 
not to give thanks for you, making mention 
of you in my prayers; that the God of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may 
give unto you the spirit of wisdom and rev¬ 
elation in the knowledge of him : the eyes of 
your understanding being enlightened ; that 
ye may know what is the hope of his call¬ 
ing, and what the riches of the glory of his 
inheritance in the saints, and what is the 


FILLED WITH CHRIST. 


135 


exceeding greatness of his power to us- 
ward who believe, according to the working 
of his mighty power, which he wrought in 
Christ, when he raised him from the dead, 
and set him at his own right hand in the 
heavenly places, far above all principality, 
and power, and might, and dominion, and 
every name that is named, not only in this 
world, but also in that which is to come.” 
Eph. i. 15-21. Then, again, in that prayer 
for the same people: “ For this cause I bow 
my knees unto the Father of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in 
heaven and earth is named, that he would 
grant you, according to the riches of his 
glory, to be strengthened with might by 
his Spirit in the inner man; that Christ 
may dwell in your hearts by faith; that 
ye, being rooted and grounded in love, 
may be able to comprehend with all saints 
what is the breadth, and length, and depth, 
and height; and to know the love of Christ, 
which passeth knowledge, that ye might be 


136 FEEDING ON CHRIST. 

filled with all the fullness of God. Now 
unto Him that is able to do exceeding 
abundantly above all that we ask or think, 
according to the power that worketh in us.” 
Eph. iii. 14-20. And once more in that 
eloquent exhortation to the Christians at 
Thessalonica, culminating in that earnest 
wish for their thorough sanctification: 
“ Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. 
In everything give thanks: for this is the 
will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. 
Quench not the Spirit, Despise not pro- 
phesyings. Prove all things; hold fast 
that which is good. Abstain from all ap¬ 
pearance of evil. And the very God of 
peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God 
your whole spirit and soul and body be 
preserved blameless unto the coming of 
our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He 
that calleth you, who also will do it.” 1 
Thess. v. 16-24. 

Filled with Christ! A soul, a Church 
filled with Christ! Fancy a score or two 


FILLED WITH CHRIST. 137 

of vessels of various material—gold, silver, 
marble, alabaster, tin, iron and clay; of va¬ 
rious shapes—urn-shaped, cup-shaped, cy¬ 
lindrical, each unlike the others, and of as 
many sizes as shapes ! And now an an¬ 
gel comes from heaven and fills them all 
with the precious oil of the upper sanc¬ 
tuary. Each vessel retains all its own 
original features, but each, like all the 
others, is full of the precious perfume. And 
what but such an array of vessels would 
one of our churches be if each member 
were full of Christ? Each one retains 
his own original native characteristics, but 
each is full of Christ. There is a garden 
containing a hundred different kinds of 
flowers, and down upon it comes one of 
God’s gushing summer showers till every 
plant is saturated. The daisy is still a 
daisy, the rose is still a rose, and the lily 
is yet a lily. But they are all full of reviv¬ 
ing, life-nourishing nectar from the clouds. 
Such a garden were a Church of Christ 


138 FEEDING ON CHRIST. 

upon which had been fulfilled the promise, 
“ I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, 
and floods upon the dry ground.” Every 
member is still the same being that he 
was before, except that, like the others, he 
is like the Saviour. Paul is still the close¬ 
reasoning logician; Apollos still the elo¬ 
quent orator; John, the same Boanerges, 
mighty for good; and Peter, the head¬ 
long, impetuous yet well-meaning Peter 
still. As the snow falls on the landscape, 
and while it obliterates none of the gen¬ 
eral features of the scene—the hills and 
knolls and hollows all remaining—yet whi¬ 
tens them all; so the baptism of grace, 
while leaving the general elements of cha¬ 
racter, disposition and temperament what 
they were before, yet mantles them all 
with the hue of the Son of God. The 
food of the soul shall enter into the 
mind and saturate all its powers, and 
yet leave ample room, and verge suf¬ 
ficient for their fullest, highest play. This 


FILLED WITH CHRIST. 


*39 


filling with righteousness has no effect in 
diminishing the number of legitimate call¬ 
ings among men. Society exists by neces¬ 
sity of human nature, and hence by ordi¬ 
nation of God. Civilization is a natural 
product of society. Art and science are 
at once the product and instrument of civ¬ 
ilization. And fullness of righteousness 
will only saturate, not abolish, the avoca¬ 
tions that are involved in society and civ¬ 
ilization. Christ in his kingdom has need 
of them all—merchants, mechanics, labor¬ 
ers, physicians, poets, sculptors, painters, 
men of science, jurists and statesmen. The 
millennium is not to be a millennium of 
monotony, but of variety. God abhors 
monotony. Progress effloresces in vari¬ 
ety. The wild rose with its plain single 
corolla, transplanted from field to garden, 
becomes in time profusely double. No 
past civilization was so many-sided as is 
our own. In the early Church they had the 
sacraments, the Sabbath and the preaching of 


140 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


the gospel; besides these, we have the relig¬ 
ious press, the Sabbath-school, and a whole 
host of other instrumentalities for evangelis¬ 
tic and beneficent labors, giving scope for 
every possible variety of talent, gift and 
taste. As God is showing in the endless 
variety of creature, animal, vegetable, and 
mineral, the exhaustless affluence of his 
wisdom, refusing to do the same thing 
twice, refusing to make even two leaves 
alike, so our religion means to show 
that it is freighted with resources to fill to 
overflowing all the vocations of life, and 
all the varied talents and dispositions of 
man, with the life of Jesus Christ. So saith 
the beatitude: they shall be saturated. The 
righteousness within shall shine from the 
face, speak from the lip, move in the ac¬ 
tions, glow in the life of every one who 
hungers and thirsts therefor, be he pres¬ 
ident, king or emperor, be he senator, 
judge or barrister, be he tradesman or ar¬ 
tisan—whatever he may be. 


FILLED WITH CHRIST. 141 

This feeding of the soul on Christ 
will work a constantly progressive bright¬ 
ening of all its powers. The path of the 
just is as the shining light, shining more 
and more unto the perfect day. Ever the 
motto of the soul will be excelsior —higher 
and yet higher! Ever will it say with Paul, 
“ Not as though I had already attained, 
either were already perfect: but I follow 
after, if that I may apprehend that for 
which also I am apprehended of Christ 
Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to 
have apprehended: but this one thing I 
do, forgetting those things which are be¬ 
hind, and reaching forth unto those things 
which are before, I press toward the mark 
for the prize of the high calling of God in 
Christ Jesus.” Phil. iii. 12-14. Nor will 
the soul well filled with Christ, for one 
moment dream of contenting itself with 
the purities and joys of a high inward 
life dissociated from a life of action in 
the cause of Christ. Faith without works 


142 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


is dead, and a dead faith is a spurious 
faith. 

The Christ-filled soul knows full well that 
“pure religion and undefiled before God 
and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless 
and widows in their affliction and to keep 
himself unspotted from the world.” James 
i. 27. And therefore it will have ever on 
its lip the words of Paul: “ Whatsoever 

things are true, whatsoever things are hon¬ 
est, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever 
things are pure, whatsoever things are 
lovely, whatsoever things are of good re¬ 
port; if there be any virtue, and if there be 
any praise, think on ” and practice “ these 
things.” Phil. iv. 8. 

Here the question will naturally arise: 
Does not this saturation with Christ involve 
the possibility of perfection in this life ? Is 
not a Christ-filled soul of necessity a per¬ 
fect soul? Can Christ and sin dwell to¬ 
gether in the same soul? If they cannot, 
Christ must be absent from myriads of 


FILLED WITH CHRIST. 


M3 


men and women whom we call Christians. 
For if one is a Christian at all, if he has 
passed from death unto life, then he is 
united to Christ, “member of his body 
and of his flesh and his bones.” If Christ 
can dwell in living union with none but 
those who are free from sin, then none 
are Christians but those who are perfect. 
And this conclusion few will venture to 
affirm. 

Undoubtedly, the language of Jesus and 
the Holy Ghost is very strong in some in¬ 
stances, almost startling. It merits fre¬ 
quent, deep, solemn, prayerful pondering 
on the part of those who honestly and 
heartily wish to know not the mind of 
man, but the mind of the Spirit. “ Be ye,” 
saith Jesus in the great sermon—“be ye 
therefore perfect, even as your Father which 
is in heaven is perfect .” Matt. v. 48. Paul 
writes to the Colossians (i. 28): We preach 
Christ, “warning every man and teaching 
every man in all wisdom, that we may pre- 


144 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


sent every man perfect in Christ Jesus.” 
Again in Col. iv. 12:“ Epaphras, who is one 
of you, a servant of Christ, saluteth you, 
always laboring fervently for you in pray¬ 
ers, that ye may stand perfect and complete 
in all the will of God.” And James writes 
(i. 4): “ But let patience have her perfect 
work, that ye may be perfect and entire, 
wanting nothing.” And the Spirit, by the 
pen of Paul, bids us: “Likewise reckon ye 
also yourselves to be dead indeed unto 
sin, but alive unto God through Jesus 
Christ our Lord.” Rom. vi. 11. And by the 
same pen the Spirit writes of “ being rooted 
and grounded in love,” of knowing “ the love 
of Christ which passeth knowledge ,” and of 
being “filled with all the fullness of God!' 
Eph. iii. 18. In 1 John iii. 9 we read: 
“ Whosoever is born of God doth not com¬ 
mit sin ; for his seed remaineth in him : and 
he cannot sin, because he is born of God.” 
And in chap. v. 18 : “We know that whoso¬ 
ever is born of God sinneth not; but he 


FILLED WITH CHRIST. 


145 


that is begotten of God keepeth himself, 
and that wicked one toucheth him not.” 

Such passages as these demand careful 
and profound attention. They point to 
perfection. They bid us aim at perfection. 
It is certain that neither Christ on the one 
hand, nor the renewed soul on the other, 
can ever be satisfied with anything short of 
perfection. But it is one thing that the 
world craves artistic perfection, and that 
the young genius can never satisfy him¬ 
self with any short of achievements like 
those of a Raphael, a Da Vinci, a Michael 
Angelo, and quite another that such per¬ 
fection will actually be compassed by the 
enthusiastic aspirant. Upon this point we 
find in the writings of the loving and be¬ 
loved John a passage brimful of instruction : 
“ But if we walk in the light , as he is in 
the light , we have fellowship one with a 7 i- 
other, and the blood of Jesus Christ his 
Son cleanseth us from all sin.” 1 John i. 7. 

There is obviously presented here a con- 
10 


146 FEEDING ON CHRIST. 

trast between the two modes of being that 
distinguish the Creator and the creature 
made in his image. “ If we walk in the 
light, as he is in the light,”—he is , they 
walk. He is sublimely stationary, they 
are in motion. He is immutable, they are 
mutable. He cannot change ; certainly not 
for the worse, and as surely not for the bet¬ 
ter, for he is now at the very best. We must 
change, for we are neither as good nor as 
bad as we may be, and we must become 
better or worse than we are. God is, exists 
—has his being in pure, unsullied, infinite 
light. We walk, we move, we go backward 
and forward, we turn to the right hand, to 
the left; we change in our aims, purposes, 
characters; we are always changing. 

And now, inasmuch as God is—dwells 
in—the light, as the sun in the sky, as the 
heart in the bosom, and as in that light alone 
is purity, therefore if man will be pure, if he 
will receive the cleansing mentioned here, 
he must walk in the light. His thinking 


FILLED WITH CHRIST. 


147 


must be under its rays; his motives must 
be under its beams; and his aims and his 
purposes and all the secret workings of his 
mind and his affections, his likes and dis¬ 
likes, all the out-acting of his powers, all 
the going of the whole machinery that 
makes up his moral being,—all must be 
under the light, in the golden light of 
God. 

And they may be; for to this earth this 
light of God comes down in many a pure 
broad beam. The Bible is one bundle of 
light-beams. Its every page is a cluster 
of light-beams. Its every doctrine, pre¬ 
cept, promise and exhortation is one of 
these beams—all its pregnant words of 
instruction, all its tender words of love. 

But of these God-beams there is one 
that outshines all the rest, as it is the light 
that is in them all. It is the very effulgence 
of God, “the brightness of the Father’s 
glory and the express image of his per¬ 
son.” “ This is the true light which light- 


148 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


eth every man that cometh into the world.” 
It is he that saith, “I am the Light of 
the world.” 

It comes to this, then, that walking in the 
light is walking in Christ—is thinking, feel¬ 
ing, loving, disliking, speaking, acting in 
Christ—imitating him, being like him, grow¬ 
ing like him. Hence, as every Christian is in 
Christ, as one cannot be a Christian and not 
be in Christ, every believer is in the light and 
is walking in the light. And as every one 
walking in the light is the subject of this 
cleansing, every believer is a subject of 
this cleansing. 

But —mark it well!—in this Christian walk¬ 
ing there are widely separated circles. In 
your imagination draw around the great 
glowing centre of all light and purity ever 
so many concentric circles. In one or other 
of those circles every Christian is walking. 
Look at John, with his head on Jesus’ bosom, 
and then clinging to Jesus at the very cross; 
he is walking deep among the inner circles. 


FILLED WITH CHRIST. 


149 


Look at Peter, following afar off; he is far 
out among the circles more dimly lighted. 
And according to the nearness of the circle 
to the centre is the brilliancy of the light 
and the force and thoroughness of the 
cleansing. And in those deeper circles 
near to God in Christ showers of beams 
fall around and irradiate the soul, and the 
mightier powers of the blood are cleansing. 
Afar off, among the outer circles, fewer 
light-beams fall and the cleansing powers 
are feeble. 

That one, faithful to his sacramental vows, 
prompt and self-sacrificing in the discharge 
of duty; every day bathing his soul in the 
light that pours from pages of God’s word; 
every day low at the mercy-seat in confes¬ 
sion, thanksgiving and adoration, opening 
the doors and windows of his spirit to in¬ 
fluences direct from the throne; every day 
careful of the secret workings of his inner 
nature; every day cherishing and cultivat¬ 
ing “ love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gen- 


150 FEEDING ON CHRIST. 

tleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temper¬ 
ance every day careful to harm no one, 
to help some one, careful to dart no sting 
into any bosom by any unkind, inconsider¬ 
ate word; every day refusing to open the lips 
in censorious words against others, nurs¬ 
ing in his soul the charity that thinketh no 
evil; ever ready to submit his will to that of 
his brethren for the common good; seeking 
not his own, but the things of others,—that 
one, faithful, loving, true, forgiving, Christ- 
like—that one is walking in the light, walking 
deep in the light, walking deeper and still 
deeper into the light, and him the blood is 
cleansing and cleansing, and still cleansing. 

Now, as to this cleansing from all sin . 
Two several cleansings from sin are spe¬ 
cified in the holy word. The first is a 
cleansing from the defilement connected 
with the guilt of sin. The second is a 
cleansing from the defilement produced by 
the workings of depravity. The first is an 
external, the second an internal cleansing. 


FILLED WITH CHRIST 15 i 

The external cleansing is that of justifi¬ 
cation, and this is instantaneous and com¬ 
plete, now and for ever. We are “justi¬ 
fied by his blood.” Rom. v. 9. 

The second is an internal cleansing, the 
cleansing of sanctification. Of this we read 
in Heb. ix. 14: “ How much more shall the 
blood of Christ, who, through the Eternal 
Spirit, offered himself without spot to God, 
purge your conscience from dead works 
to serve the living God?” And Paul (1 
Cor. x. 16) writes: “The cup of blessing 
which we bless, is it not the communion of 
the blood of Christ f" On this passage Dr. 
Hodge writes : “ Paul is writing to believers, 
and assumes the presence of faith in the 
receivers.” Those who are in possession 
of faith, and who are already justified, re¬ 
ceive an additional and an internal benefit 
from the blood of Jesus. 

Blood is life. The blood of Christ is the 
life of Christ, and this communion of the 
blood of Christ is a participation in that 


152 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


blood. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, ex¬ 
cept ye drink my blood ye have no life in 
you. Whoso drinketh my blood hath eter¬ 
nal life.” John vi. 53, 56. Thus the blood 
of Christ, which is the life of Christ, be¬ 
comes the food of the soul’s new life. 

The blood sprinkled on the soul justifies^ 
and this sprinkling of justifying blood sig¬ 
nalizes the moment when the soul is regen¬ 
erated by the Spirit of God. And now the 
blood whose first droppings marked the mo¬ 
ment of the new birth becomes the food, 
the principle, the life of the new life. Jus¬ 
tification sprinkles blood on the soul. Re¬ 
generation, as it were, transfers this blood 
into the soul, and now sanctification, like 
a strong beating heart, diffuses, transfuses 
this blood as a cleansing, purifying agency 
through all the spiritual frame; and thus 
“ Christ liveth in us.” 

Thus the text: “If we walk in the light.” 
The verbs in this passage, let it be well 
marked, are in the present tense. If we 


FILLED WITH CHRIST. 


153 


are walking , the blood of Jesus Christ is 
cleansing —cleansing while we are walk¬ 
ing. But the unjustified are not walking. 
They are dead in trespasses and sins, or 
if they are walking, it is in the darkness, 
not in the light. Here, then, there is no 
allusion to the unjustified. The subject 
of the passage is exclusively the justified 
who are cleansed as they walk with the 
cleansing of sanctification. And this blood 
of Christ cleanseth one “walking in the 
light” from all sin. 

We are now deep among the mysteries 
of godliness, and it behooves us to put 
our shoes from off our feet, for we are 
on holy ground. Here a small mistake is 
a very great mistake. Remember that the 
cleansing spoken of is a cleansing of souls 
already justified, and hence it is a cleansing 
of sanctification. Remember also that it is 
a cleansing in this world. It is a cleansing 
while we are walking, and therefore before 
we reach “ the rest that remaineth for the 


154 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


people of God.” The verbs are in the 
present tense. The discourse is of the 
present world, without allusion to the world 
to come. 

The question thus forces itself upon us, 
as to the precise meaning in this place of 
this word all. Is it to be taken in a re¬ 
stricted or in an absolute, unrestricted 
sense ? Does the Spirit here say that he 
who complies with the condition specified 
is cleansed absolutely from all sin ? 

That this absolute meaning of the word 
‘‘all” is impossible in this passage appears 
from the fact that the text contains no al¬ 
lusion to the guilt of sin. The cleansing 
here spoken of is that of sanctification, and 
therefore assumes the antecedent cleansing 
of justification. The text is addressed to 
those already justified. But in justification 
there is a mighty cleansing with the blood 
of Jesus. And all the sin that is removed 
in our justification is of necessity excluded 
from this “ all ” of sanctification. The word 


FILLED WITH CHRIST. 155 

“all” is of necessity to be restricted to the 
sin that remains in the soul after the soul 
is justified. 

And now the question recurs: Does the 
Spirit here say that he who complies with 
the condition in the text is cleansed abso¬ 
lutely from all the sin that survives justifi¬ 
cation ? If so, that one is free from all sin ; 
he is as free from sin as the angels, as the 
sainted dead. No sin adheres to him. No 
sin hides itself in any recess of his being, 
and no sin shows itself in any act or 
thought or motive or emotion of his life. 
If he is cleansed absolutely from all sin, 
then is there no sin left in any form, shape 
or degree. He is walking in the light, and 
being cleansed from all sin, he is so trans¬ 
parent to the light that no ray is intercept¬ 
ed, is absorbed, is refracted from its course 
by any remaining trace of sin. 

If this be so, he “ loves the Lord his God 
with all his heart, soul, mind, strength, and 
his neighbor as himself,” and this every mo- 


156 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


ment of his life; and if so, he must elim¬ 
inate from the Lord’s Prayer the petition 
that asks “forgive us our trespasses.” If 
so, we must seek a new interpretation for 
many texts in God’s word, such as “ in many 
things we offend all—all of us offend.” But 
he that is cleansed from all sin offends not. 
Then we shall have insuperable difficulty 
with the near context: “ If we say that we 
have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the 
truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, 
he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, 
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 
If we say that we have not sinned, we make 
him a liar, and his word is not in us.” i John 
i. 8-10. “My little children, these things 
write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if 
any man sin, we have an advocate with the 
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and he 
is the propitiation for our sins: and not for 
ours only, but also for the sins of the whole 
world.” i John ii. i, 2. Now the verb have, 
we have , is in the present tense, and we shall 


FILLED WITH CHRIST 157 

be compelled to deliver it from the present 
into the past to make it harmonize with an 
absolute freedom from sin. The beloved 
John is speaking, and speaking, too, in the 
first person, putting himself alongside of 
those whom he addresses. Surely he was 
walking in the light, and was thus in actual 
experience of the cleansing in the text. 
Yet even he says, “If we say we have 
no sin,” etc. 

Nay, by this interpretation of this “all,” 
we neutralize the text itself and make it 
meaningless. For, as we have said, the 
verbs are in the present tense; if we are 
walking the blood is cleansing. The walk¬ 
ing and the cleansing are contemporane¬ 
ous, are going on at the same moment. 
If we are walking, we are being cleansed 
while we are walking. 

Now, if the cleansing were absolutely 
from all sin, then there were no sin left to 
be cleansed from, there can be no more 
cleansing; then it is no longer true that 


158 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


while we are walking the blood of Jesus 
is cleansing, for the cleansing is all done 
and the text is self-neutralized. 

The walking and the cleansing go to¬ 
gether. If we cease to walk in the light 
the cleansing ceases, and if we cease to 
need cleansing the cleansing ceases; we 
have walked away from the cleansing; we 
have left it behind, and it can never again 
overtake us. And no more can it be true 
of us that “if we walk in the light the 
blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from 
sin.” 

No ! no ! It is one of the most beautiful 
of gospel truths, this walking and this 
cleansing while we walk; the believer ever 
walking in the light, and as ever needing, 
so ever receiving, the cleansing of the blood 
of Jesus. If we are walking in the light 
the blood of Jesus is ever, ever, ever clean¬ 
sing until we walk into heaven cleansed, and 
join the song, “Unto Him that loved us 
and washed us from our sin—sin of con- 


FILLED WITH CHRIST. 


159 


demnation, sin of defilement—in his own 
blood, and made us kings and priests to 
God and his Father.” 

As, then, we cannot possibly take this 
word in its complete absolute sense, what 
is the thought embosomed in it by the 
Holy Ghost? In what sense are we 
cleansed from all sin ? This “ all,” as it 
alludes exclusively to sanctification, must 
point us to all forms of sin, and the de¬ 
grees in which those forms have being 
and action in the life. It is a present 
cleansing, and as constant as the walking. 
It keeps even step with the walking. As 
one walks in this light, this blood, step by 
step, as he passes on, cleanses him from 
sin; cleanses his motives, aims, purposes; 
cleanses from selfishness, worldliness and 
all the subtle elements of sin that mar the 
purity of every Christian character; cleanses 
from evil passions, envy, jealousy, wrath, 
malice, evil-speaking, censoriousness, care¬ 
lessness as to the feelings, interest, happi- 


I 


l 6 o FEEDING ON CHRIST. 

ness of the brethren; cleanses from all 
forms of sin, reducing their strength, wear¬ 
ing them out, and bleaching the character, 
the disposition, the tastes, and conforming 
to Christ the manners, the conduct; clean¬ 
sing from sin within, and thus from its ex¬ 
ternal manifestations; cleansing and still 
cleansing—always something left to cleanse, 
and always cleansing it. 

To what degree may this cleansing go 
with those walking in the light ? 

Oh when we remember that this cleansing 
is through the operation of divine power, 
“ the power that worketh in us,” and when 
we remember that this power is the power 
of the Holy Ghost working with the blood 
of Jesus, we feel that it were sin to say 
that it may not and ought not to go very, 
very, very far. Although it will never in 
this life reach the length of a complete 
expulsion of depravities, yet that it should 
do a great and glorious work within the 
soul of the child of God, in repressing 


filled with christ. 


161 

and subduing, is obvious from many a 
scriptu re. 

The truth is, that all time spent in dis¬ 
cussing the question as to attainability of 
complete perfection would be much better 
spent in efforts to be better than we are, 
whatever we may now actually be. Does 
the true scientist ever waste his precious 
time in efforts to demonstrate the possi¬ 
bility that all the yet hidden mysteries 
of Nature may be unveiled to view ? 
Or is he at all hindered in his progress 
or discouraged in his efforts at advance 
in knowledge by the reflection that the 
more he learns the more there remains 
to be learned? Does the sculptor throw 
down his chisel or the painter his pen¬ 
cil because of the hopelessness of sur¬ 
passing a Praxiteles or a Parrhasius ? And 
shall we be hindered for one instant in our 
way—nay, should we not bound onward 
with all the fleeter step—because we know 
that the path before us is to grow brighter 
11 


162 FEEDING ON CHRIST. 

and brighter as we move onward toward 
perfect day? 

But what then means this saturation with 
righteousness , this fullness of God? Evi¬ 
dently it means a fullness of our present 
spiritual capacities, coupled with the neces¬ 
sary and steady enlargement of those ca¬ 
pacities under the expanding pressure of 
the present fullness for a larger fullness 
still. It means not an entire expulsion 
of the depravities that have struck through 
our being, but a baptism of power and holi¬ 
ness for the battling with those depravities 
and subjection of them under the power of 
an indwelling Christ. And this is the sat¬ 
uration promised to all who hunger and 
thirst after righteousness. 


HOW MAY THIS FULLNESS BE MINE? 

Sometimes, after a protracted field-with¬ 
ering drought, there comes a shower—not 



HOW MAY THIS FULLNESS BE MINE? 163 

a general but a partial shower. It passes 
over the country from west to east in a nar¬ 
row, sharply-limited path, drenching with its 
watery treasures the belt of territory that 
lies just beneath it, while it leaves all on 
either side as dry as ever. Now we may 
fancy some poor flower just on the outside 
of this favored strip, drooping and ready to 
die, to look across the dividing line at its 
more favored sister filled full of the cloud- 
brought nectar, and bright and happy and 
fragrant in its fullness. And as it gazes it 
sighs, Would God my place had been at your 
side when the gracious shower fell! And 
how can any of us repress a wish like this 
as in our emptiness and dryness we set 
before our eye the spiritual condition im¬ 
plied in this fullness of righteousness—as 
we set before us the image pictured in the 
apostle’s words, “The very God of peace 
sanctify you wholly, and I pray God your 
whole spirit and soul and body be pre¬ 
served blameless,” that ye may know in 


164 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


your own experience “what is the exceed¬ 
ing greatness of his power to usward who 
believe”—that ye may know in your own 
experience “ the love of Christ which pass- 
eth knowledge, that ye might be filled with 
all the fullness of God”? Well we know that 
there are at our communion-tables numbers 
of believers who, with their thoughts on 
Christ’s beatitude, their minds upon the 
apostle’s fullness , the conception before 
them of a child of God filled with Christ, 
sigh day by day, “ Oh that I knew where 
I might find him! Behold, I go forward, 
but he is not there, and backward, but 
I cannot perceive him; on the left hand, 
where he doth work, but I cannot behold 
him ; he hideth himself on the right hand, 
that I cannot see him.” Job xxiii. 3, 8, 9. 
They ever sing and sigh— 


Lord, I hear of showers of blessings 
Thou art scattering full and free— 
Showers the thirsty land refreshing; 
Let some droppings fall on me. 


HO W MAY THIS FULLNESS BE MINE? 165 

“ Pass me not, 0 God, my Father, 

Sinful though my heart may be; 

Thou might’st leave me, but the rather 
Let thy mercy fall on me. 

“Pass me not, O gracious Saviour! 

Let me live and cling to thee; 

Fain I’m longing for thy favor; 

Whilst thou’rt calling, call for me. 

How may I reach and enjoy this fullness? 
Has not Jesus put the response to such 
longings into the very heart of his beati¬ 
tude. “ Blessed are they which do hunger 
and thirst after righteousness.” Ah, here 
it is! It is the hungering and thirsting 
who are filled. That is, the supply is ac¬ 
cording to the appetite. This is the law 
of the kingdom ; is it not a very general 
law ? 

You are invited with a hundred others 
to a sumptuous feast, and according to his 
taste and appetite each guest is supplied. 
One prefers one kind of food, another an¬ 
other; one asks for this kind of fruit, and 
one for another kind. Each gets what he 


166 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


craves. One eats very little, one eats very 
largely, but each one gets as much as he 
wants. And here before us is the feast of 
life. The great table is spread, and guests 
are there by the million. One craves gold, 
nothing but gold; another craves popular¬ 
ity: it is the one thing for which his bosom 
burns. One seeks official position. This 
one craves social pleasure, and seeks it at 
balls and parties. The passion of that one 
is the opera or the theatre. Some burn for 
the maddening exhilaration of the wine- 
cup, and some for the garbage of licen¬ 
tious indulgence. This one is burning up 
with ambition for fame as a poet, painter, 
sculptor or prince in literature, and in the 
main each one obtains what he covets. 

So is it within the sphere of vegetation. 
In a certain field plants are growing of 
twenty different varieties. Each one of 
these plants craves for its necessities a 
given species of mineral. One needs cop¬ 
per, another iron, another silica, another 


now MAY THIS FULLNESS BE MINE? 16/ 

phosphorus, and so with the others. Each 
•plant gets what it craves and as much as 
it needs. Here, too, it is hunger that gets 
fed. It is the craving that finds satis¬ 
faction. 

There in yonder school is a class, and in 
the class two pupils equal in native intel¬ 
lectual power. They study the same les¬ 
sons and under the same teacher. But 
one of those pupils is far in advance of 
the other in knowledge. Why ? Because 
one satisfies himself with barely getting 
through with the drudgeries of the pre¬ 
scribed recitation, while nothing satisfies 
the other but a thorough mastering of 
every lesson. The one craves knowledge, 
and he gets it. The other craves time for 
idle amusement, and he gets it. Again it 
is the actual hunger that is fed. 

De Quincey tells a touching story of a 
family in Easdale, not far from Grasmere, 
in the north-west of England. There were 
the parents and six children, the eldest 


168 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


child a daughter not eleven years old. The 
parents, returning from a public sale at some 
distance from their home, were overtaken by 
a snow-storm of unusual violence, and per¬ 
ished. The storm that buried the bodies 
of the parents in death buried also their 
cottage so deep that for days none of the 
neighbors could reach it. In that poor home 
there was a very meagre supply of provis¬ 
ion. But now that oldest daughter, under 
the exigencies of that awful time, at once 
developed into a motherly woman. She 
husbanded the scanty fare and ministered it 
to the little brood according to their wants. 
But to which of those little ones did she 
give first and most ? De Quincey has not 
told us, but we know just as well as if he 
had. It was to the hungriest. It was to 
that little one that cried most piteously for 
bread. Again it is the hungering that get 
the supply. But where is there a heart of 
pity so tender as that of our God ? “ Like 

as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord 


HOW MAY THIS FULLNESS BE MINE? 169 

pitieth them that fear him.” Ps. ciii. 13. 
Poor Hagar in the desert, when the water 
was spent in the bottle, almost gave up the 
ghost in anguish over her famishing child. 
Yet God’s heart is still more tender toward 
his children. “ Can a mother forget her 
sucking child, that she should not have 
compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, 
they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.” 
Isa. xlix. 15. This God is our God, and he 
cannot bear to hear his children cry in vain 
for soul-food. He will hear the cry. The 
hungering and thirsting one is sure to be 
filled. The reason why so many are full 
of knowledge, and others full of wealth, is 
that their hunger for these is so intense. 
The reason why so many believers are spir¬ 
itually so pale and thin and weak is the lack 
of the appetite for the Bread of God. The 
way to the filling lies through the craving. 
Hear your Father’s call: “Hearken tome, 
ye that follow after righteousness, ye that 
seek the Lord: look unto the rock whence 


170 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit 
whence ye are digged.” Isa. li. i. The call 
is to the hungering and thirsting, to those 
that follow after righteousness. And what 
is the appended promise ?—“ For the Lord 
shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her 
waste places; and he will make her wilder¬ 
ness like Eden, and her desert like the gar¬ 
den of the Lord; joy and gladness shall be 
found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice 
of melody.” Isa. li. 3. Here is the very 
fullness of Eden. Again we read : “ It is 
time to seek the Lord till he come and rain 
righteousness upon you! Hos. x. 12. 
Here is promised a drenching shower of 
righteousness. To whom is this promise 
given ? To those who are thirsty enough 
to seek for it as the drought-parched field 
seeks for rain. 

But if there is to be a scriptural filling , 
there must be a scriptural appetite . The 
craving in the beatitude is not a hungering 
merely, nor a thirsting merely, but a hun- 


HOW MAY THIS FULLNESS BE MINE? I/I 

gering and thirsting. The appetite, then, 
must be— 

i. Intense . What is there for intensity 
like combined hunger and thirst? Under 
the pressure of hunger a mother has killed 
her own child and eaten it. 2 Kings vi. 28, 
29. Driven by the ragings of thirst, a man 
has bitten his own flesh that he might 
moisten his lips with his own blood. 

Now, however cautious we may be in 
over-pressing such figures, still the fact is 
full of significance that Jesus combines 
these two imperious appetites to express 
the craving that is to be satisfied with full¬ 
ness of righteousness. And what saith the 
experience of believers ? 

A Christian minister once asked a bro¬ 
ther with whom he was conversing, “ Did 
you ever long for God till you thought 
you should die?” “No,” was the reply, 
“Well,” he said, “I have.” “Oh,” exclaim¬ 
ed the saintly Rutherford—“oh, how sweet 
to be.wholly Christ’s, and wholly in Christ 


172 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


—to dwell in Immanuel’s high and blessed 
land, and live in that sweetest air where 
no wind bloweth but the breathings of the 
Holy Ghost! Oh that we could know 
the power of godliness! Oh that I could 
feed upon Christ’s breathing and kiss¬ 
ing and upon the hopes of my meeting 
and his! Christ! Christ! nothing but 
Christ can cool our love’s burning languor! 
O thirsty love! wilt thou set Christ the 
well of life to thy head and drink thy fill ? 
Drink and spare not. Oh if we were 
clasped in each other’s arms!” Surely 
here is a hungering and thirsting, and if 
ever a man was filled with Christ, that 
man was Samuel Rutherford. 

Hewitson writes: “ I laid myself, spirit 
and soul and body, before the Lord this 
day, praying him to be my wisdom, right¬ 
eousness, sanctification and redemption—to 
fill my spirit with the Holy Ghost, to sanc¬ 
tify all the faculties of my soul and all the 
members of my body, to make me wholly 


HOW MAY THIS FULLNESS BE MINE? 173 

his own.” And again : “ O Lord Jesus ! that 
I was holy as thou art holy !” Headley Vick- 
ars writes, “ Oh that I had more of the 
mind that was in Christ Jesus! that the 
motive of my every action were love to 
Jesus!” David Brainerd was ever breath¬ 
ing out such longings: “All I want is to 
be more holy, more like my dear Lord! 
Oh for sanctification ! My very soul pants 
for the complete restoration of the blessed 
image of my Saviour.” And again: “I 
could do nothing but tell my dear Lord, 
that he knew I desired, nothing but him¬ 
self and his holiness—that he had given 
me these desires and he only could give 
me the thing desired.” And again: “ Oh 
for holiness! Oh for more of God in my 
soul! Oh this pleasing pain! It makes 
my soul press after God.” And again: 
“ My soul breathed after God in sweet spir¬ 
itual and longing desires of conformity to 
him.” And yet again : “I found my heart 
go forth after God in longing desire of 


174 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


conformity to him.” Surely here is some¬ 
thing like a hungering and thirsting after 
righteousness. 

But how was it with the saints of old, 
who, however highly favored, lacked many 
a means of grace that we now possess— 
means of grace and stimuli that proph¬ 
ets and kings desired to have, yet had 
them not? 

There is a desert—rock, sand, barrenness, 
desolation all around—not a rivulet, not a 
spring, not a green thing to indicate the 
presence of even hidden moisture. On 
the ground in the heart of that desert sits 
a man, the sun burning into his brain, his 
mouth parched, his whole frame burning 
up with thirst. Did ever a man hunger 
and thirst after God as that man longs for 
a cup of water? Many will say no! The 
thought is enthusiastic and extravagant. 
Well, then, what are we to do with such 
words as these?—“O God! thou art my 
God; early will I seek thee: my soul 


HOW MAY THIS FULLNESS BE MINE? 175 

thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for 
thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no 
water is: to see thy power and thy glory, 
so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary. 
My soul followeth hard after thee.” Ps. 
lxiii. 1, 2, 8 . Is this enthusiastic extrav¬ 
agance, or is it the honest expression of a 
real experience ? But the thirst here in¬ 
dicated is very intense. As Mr. Barnes 
writes: “ The two words soul and flesh are 
designed to embrace the entire man and 
to express the idea that he longed su¬ 
premely for God.” Dr. Addison Alex¬ 
ander writes, “The act of seeking a thing 
early implies impatience or importunate 
desire. The soul and flesh together mean 
the whole man.” And the writer of this 
passage knew what he was writing about, 
and drew more largely from his memory 
than from his imagination. These words, 
as we see from the heading of the psalm, 
were actually written in the desert in the 
wilderness of Judah . The sluggish intel- 


176 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


lect thinks the man touched with semi-in¬ 
sanity who is with ravenous appetite all 
the while devouring books—who goes in 
quest of knowledge deep into tropical jun¬ 
gles, high into alpine recesses, away even 
among the murderous frigidities of arctic 
seas. We only show .our ignorance first 
of the infinitely fascinating glories of Christ, 
and second of the godlike susceptibilities 
that lie in man when quickened by the 
Holy Ghost to longing desires for vision 
of those glories, if we class such utter¬ 
ances among mere enthusiastic extrava¬ 
gances. And will not these hungerings 
and thirstings be filled? Yes. “My soul 
shall be satisfied as with marrow and fat¬ 
ness, and my mouth shall praise thee 
with joyful lips: when I remember thee 
upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the 
night watches.” Ps. lxiii. 5, 6. Yonder on 
a burning Syrian plain is a gazelle—timid, 
delicate, sensitive, with its dark lustrous, 
eye. The sunbeams are hot upon its 


HOW MAY THIS FULLNESS BE MLNE? 

back, and wellnigh as hot the reflected 
rays beneath. It is almost dead with heat 
and thirst. At a short distance is water 
toward which it staggers, and as it stag¬ 
gers on it raises a piteous cry, almost a 
prayer to God for angel ministries to help 
it to the pool. And he who told of the 
longings of his soul for God in the fol¬ 
lowing language had seen this sight: “ As 
the hart panteth after the water-brooks, 
so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My 
soul thirsteth for God, for the living God ; 
when shall I come and appear before God ? 
My tears have been my meat day and 
night, while they continually say unto me, 
Where is thy God?” Ps. xlii. 1-3. Let us 
not, then, excuse ourselves to ourselves for 
our spiritual languor, with the suggestion 
of extravagance in the figure of a com¬ 
bined hunger and thirst for the Bread of 
God, that is like those of our animal na¬ 
ture in a time of drought and famine. 

There is a man urging his way after 
12 


178 FEEDING ON CHRIST. 

God, but the night has overtaken him. 
He can no longer see. He fears he may 
miss the way, and now hear his piteous cry: 
“ Oh send out thy light and thy truth; let 
them lead me.” Ps. xliii. 3. What beau¬ 
ty in the thought! A soul hungering 
and thirsting after righteousness, and two 
angels, one of them, God’s Light, leading 
him by one hand, and the other, God’s 
Truth, leading him by the other, and the 
two conducting him to God’s holy hill and 
to his tabernacles —to the place where 


Heaven comes down the soul to greet, 
And glory crowns the mercy-seat!” 


And shall not that soul be filled? “Then 
will I go unto the altar of God, unto God 
my exceeding joy; yea, upon the harp will I 
praise thee, O God my God.” Ps. xliii. 4. 

2. This craving should be persistent as 
well as intense. 

There are two reasons why believers live 
at so poor and dying a rate. One is that 


HOW MAY THIS FULLNESS BE MINE? 179 

the appetite is so feeble, and the other is 
that it is so intermittent. It is keen to-day 
and dull to-morrow. In time of revival the 
craving is strong. In time of general cold¬ 
ness the soul contents itself with the husks 
of worldliness or the coarse food of a com¬ 
mon, humdrum spiritual life. In the closet 
the craving revives a little; in the hours of 
secular life it declines. At the communion¬ 
table it is whetted again; during the inter¬ 
val between the communions it is blunted 
again. But this appetite should be contin¬ 
uous, and not intermittent. If you read, 
years ago, the thrilling narrative of Lieuten¬ 
ant Strain’s expedition across the Isthmus, 
you remember that those starving men 
hungered by night as well as by day. In 
their dreams they saw nothing but tables 
loaded with luscious viands. So was it with 
the spouse of Christ: “By night on my 
bed I sought Him whom my soul loveth: 
I sought him, but I found him not. I will 
rise now, and go about the city in the 


i8o 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


streets, and in the broad ways I will seek 
Him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, 
but I found him not. The watchmen that 
go about the city found me: to whom I 
said, Saw ye Him whom my soul loveth?” 
Cant. iii. 1-3. 

And such craving will be satisfied. “ It 
was but a little that I passed from them, 
but I found Him whom my soul loveth.” 
Cant. iii. 4. 

So also the Psalmist: “/ remember thee 
upon my bed; I meditate on thee in the night- 
watches .” Ps. lxiii. 6. 

But may I not find some excuse for my 
spiritual languor and weakness in the fact 
that appetite is by its very nature intermit¬ 
tent? When we have just eaten our des¬ 
sert at the dinner-table we do not wish to 
sit down again and eat another dinner. 
This is true of the animal appetites, the 
appetites of the body, but is it true also 
of those of the mind ? How is it with 
craving for wealth ? When some morning 


HOW MAY THIS FULLNESS BE MINE? i 8 l 


the merchant makes a ten-thousand-clollar 
sale, does he call his clerks about him and 
say, “Now, boys , we have done a good days 
work; let us turn out these other customers, 
shut up the store and go home”? I trow 
not. The hunger to sell is more eager 
than ever, and when all the goods on the 
shelves are gone he will send for more. 
A rich and pious old saint used always at 
family worship to pray, “ 0 Lord, send us a 
sufficiency of the good things of this life!' 
And when one asked him, “ What do you 
mean by a sufficiency?” he answered, after 
a little puzzling thought, “A little more than 
you have got.” So it is with gold-hunger. 
How is it with thirst for knowledge ? Pro¬ 
fessor Agassiz, we will suppose, makes to¬ 
day some grand discovery in science—a 
discovery that will fill the ears of the world 
with the sound of his name. Will he now 
say to himself, “ I have made my fortune as 
a scientist; I will retire and wear my laurels 
in rest and joy”? Far from it. He will 


182 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


be the next minute hungrier for knowledge 
than ever. 

As with the mind, so with the heart. Do 
parents and children who truly love each 
other ever know any rest from love ? 
Why, sometimes when the mother has lived 
with her daughter for twenty years, and then 
the daughter dies, the mother dies too of a 
broken heart. Two young hearts like kin¬ 
dred drops have mingled into one; and 
whenever did it happen that the young 
man, still overflowing with love, said to his 
future bride, “ Come, now, my darling, we 
have loved one another warmly and for a 
long time; let us now cease a while in our 
love”? But Christ and the soul are lovers. 
He is the Bridegroom and the soul the 
bride. He says, “ Thou art beautiful , O my 
love, as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem .” Cant, 
vi. 4. The soul responds, “ Thou, my Be¬ 
loved, art white and ruddy, the chiefest among' 
ten thousand .” Cant. v. 10. Hence cessa¬ 
tion of love, cooling of affection, waning 


HOW MAY THIS APPETITE BE MINE? 183 

and intermittence of appetite are unnat¬ 
ural, and are due to sin and unbelief and 
apostasy to worldliness. Ceasing to feed 
by faith on Christ or slacking of appetite 
is sad proof that the soul has been feed¬ 
ing on forbidden fruit. 


HOW MAY THIS APPETITE BE MINE? 

The first step toward the acquirement of 
the appetite for the divine bread and the 
wine of the kingdom is the desire for it. 
Are there not multitudes of believers who 
are quite satisfied with just enough food to 
keep them alive? They are willing to stag¬ 
ger heavenward, spiritually pale and weak 
and sickly, provided they can at last stag¬ 
ger into heaven and not fall and die by the 
way. Such a feeding on Christ leaves more 
appetite for worldliness. They wish to go 
to heaven with religion in one hand and the 
world in the other. Their aim is to be 



184 FEEDING ON CHRIST. 

saved, and not to glorify and enjoy Christ 
on the way. 

It may be asked if the desire for the ap¬ 
petite is not the appetite. Certainly it is 
not. In our homes are thousands of pale 
invalids who have intense desire for an ap¬ 
petite just because they have no appetite. 
“ Oh," they say, “ had I but an appetite, / 
could grow strong and recover!" This twin 
craving for Christ is a most legitimate ob¬ 
ject of desire, and this desire is an essential 
prerequisite for the appetite. 

2. Then it will tend to awaken the appe¬ 
tite to meditate much upon the food —its ho¬ 
liness, its attractiveness, its power, its abun¬ 
dance, its soul-satisfying nature, its acces¬ 
sibility, and the joys of a copious feed¬ 
ing upon it—above all, its accessibility to 
you , and the readiness and ability of the 
Holy Spirit to feed you to the full. Shut 
your ears to the tempter when he cunning¬ 
ly whispers, “ This may be possible for others , 
but not for you . A. Paul and a John might 


HOW MAY THIS APPE TITE BE MINE ? 185 

be filled ’ but you are neither a John nor a 
Paul .” That tempter is now what he was 
from the beginning—a liar . As if there 
were a wound the balm in Gilead, the 
Messianic balm, could not cure ! As if the 
Spirit, with Christ’s work and worth in his 
hands, could master and fill one soul, but 
not another! Away with such Christ-ac¬ 
cusing, God-denying unbelief, and harbor 
in your breast no doubt that whatever our 
holy religion has done for any soul it can 
do for you ! 

3. Besides, recall the feastings you have 
in other days enjoyed. 

David had taken refuge from Saul in the 
cave of Adullam, and one day he was thirs¬ 
ty, very thirsty. His thirst called to his 
mind the well near the gate of Bethlehem, 
at whose clear cool waters many a time he 
had quenched his thirst in the days of boy¬ 
hood when heated with play, and many a 
time when in riper youth he returned home¬ 
ward from watching the flocks in the fields; 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


186 

and the picture of the old well and the mem¬ 
ories of refreshment associated with it over¬ 
came him, and he sighed aloud, “ Oh that 
one would give me drink of the water of 
the well!" 2 Sam. xxiii. 15. 

Many of us can recall some moss-edged 
well of salvation at which we have drunk 
deep sweet draughts of spiritual refreshment. 
Many of us can recall the table spread in 
the wilderness where we tasted and saw 
that the Lord was full of grace. There 
was that precious revival of religion when 
light from the throne shone so bright 
around; when earth seemed so far away, 
heaven so near, Christ so dear and hope 
so bright and sweet; and when we thought 
we never again could enjoy any other and 
less gracious scenes. And there was that 
communion season, where over us we could 
see the love-banner waving and hear the 
wings of the heavenly Dove as they moved 
above our heads. There were those scenes 
in the closet when like John we reclined 


HOW MAY THIS APPETITE BE MINE? 187 

our heads upon Jesus’ very bosom. Can 
we not all think of oases larger or smaller 
in the desert when we hungered and thirst¬ 
ed, and were, for the time at least, partially 
filled? And now, by recalling those seasons 
and dwelling on them in our thoughts, we 
may reawaken our hungerings and sigh 
like David, “ Oh for another deeper , fuller 
draught of those precious waters /” 

4. Then be very careful not to grieve the 
Spirit of God, 

It is a little remarkable that we so com¬ 
monly assume that the commands, “ Grieve 
not the Spirit^ “ Quench not the Spirit ,” are 
addressed almost exclusively to the uncon¬ 
verted, while in fact they are explicitly ad¬ 
dressed to believers. Grieve not the Spirit, 
writes Paul (Eph. iv. 28-32), by any corrupt 
communication , any bitterness , wrath , anger , 
clamor , evil-speaking , malice—want of kind¬ 
ness , of tender-heartedness or of a forgivmg 
spirit. And the reason for the charge is 
obvious. It is he alone that awakens the 


i88 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


appetite, he alone that stimulates it, he 
alone that brings the food, and he alone 
can impart the bread to the soul. 

There is a bare, barren rock in the sea, 
and on it a shipwrecked mariner half dead 
with starvation. At peril of his own life 
another swims to the rock and brings the 
sufferer food. The food revives him, and his 
friend brings him more. But when the ship¬ 
wrecked man has become strong enough, 
he meets that friend with reproaches, he 
heaps insult upon him, he assails him and 
drives him away. Now the foolish man 
must starve, for he has not strength enough 
to swim to the shore. If he attempt this he 
will drown. You say that this is an impos¬ 
sible supposition. Yes it is, in the sphere 
of secular life, but not in the spiritual king¬ 
dom. Jesus brought the bread of life to 
the Jews, and they killed him who brought 
it, and the nation starved. The people of 
Gadara besought him to depart out of their 
coasts. 


HOW MAY THIS APPETITE BE MINE? 189 

Now, that wrecked mariner is man as he 
is by nature; only man by nature is not 
half dead, but wholly dead—dead in tres¬ 
passes and sins. The friend that visits him 
is the Spirit of God. “ He found him in a 
desert land, and in the waste howling wil¬ 
derness ; he led him about, he instructed 
him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. 
As an eagle stirreth up her nest, flutter¬ 
ed! over her young, spreadeth abroad her 
wings, taketh them, beareth them on her 
wings” (Deut. xxxii. io, 11), so doth the 
Holy Spirit hover over the soul and bear 
it on his mighty wing. First, he quickens 
the dead soul, imparting to it the Christ- 
life. You—saints at Ephesus and “faithful 
in Christ Jesus"—“hath he quickened who 
were dead in trespasses and sins." Eph. i. i ; 
ii. 1. But life hungers. It must be con¬ 
stantly fed or it will die; and the Spirit 
brings the food from heaven, and through 
faith feeds the new life. He enables it to 
eat and drink and grow strong and Christ- 


190 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


like. But the Spirit may be grieved; he 
may be hindered in his work. May he, 
then, be grieved utterly away? May a 
new-born soul be ever abandoned and left 
to spiritual starvation and death ? Is it 
possible that the doom ever goes forth 
over the blood-ransomed soul, “He is 
joined to idols ; let him alone”? Hos. iv. 
17. No ; no fear of this. 

“ The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose 
I will not, I will not desert to his foes; 

That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, 
Ell never , no never , no never forsake /” 

But can we be satisfied with a bare breath 
of life in us ? Who that is a believer at all 
but sighs in his conscious feebleness, 

“ Dear Lord, and shall we ever live 
At this poor dying rate— 

Our love so faint, so cold to thee, 

And thine to us so great” ? 

No; he will not leave us to starve to death. 
But he may be grieved and withdraw in a 
great measure his gracious influences, and 


HOW MAY THIS APPETITE BE MINE? igi 

then our appetite will flag and our feeding 
become meagre, and we shall remain mere 
babes in Christ, far, very far, from “ the mea¬ 
sure of the stature of the fullness of Christ .” 
Eph. iv. 13. If, then, you are not content 
with paleness and feebleness and expo¬ 
sure to doubts and fears; if you are ill- 
content with a wretched Laodicean luke¬ 
warmness, neither cold nor hot; if you 
covet, at least, the appetite,—be careful to 
grieve the Spirit of God in no thought, 
word or deed. 

“ Quench not the Spirit. Despise not 
prophesyings. Prove all things; hold fast 
that which is good. Abstain from all ap¬ 
pearance of evil. And the very God of 
peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God 
your whole spirit and soul and body be 
preserved blameless unto the coming of 
our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He that 
calleth you, who also will do it.” 1 Thess. 
v. 19-24. 

Quench not the Spirit. The Holy Spirit 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


I92 

is a light. He comes to illuminate the soul. 
He takes the things of Christ and shows 
them to the soul, and he himself is the light 
in which we see what he shows. When the 
angels descended on the plains of Bethle¬ 
hem, they shook light from their bright, 
holy wings upon the watching shepherds 
and. upon all the surrounding scene; and 
when the Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove, waves 
his wings over the soul, the light is show¬ 
ered round as from the golden face of a 
new-born morning, and in that light we see 
Immanuel in his beauty. “ Thine eyes shall 
see the King in his beauty .” Isa. xxxiii. 17. 
Now, in our eye he hath comeliness, and 
when we see him thus there is beauty in 
him and we desire him. The appetite is 
sharpened. Should the sun break through 
the midnight, what a sudden glory would 
be on the landscape! When the Spirit 
shines on Jesus in the soul, lo! he starts 
out to view, the Rose of Sharon, the Lily 
of the valley. 


HOW MAY THIS APPETITE BE MINE? 193 

But how may he be quenched? Not in 
himself, but in the soul’s eye—by any dust- 
cloud of sin. Anything sinful in the tem¬ 
per, among the passions, among the affec¬ 
tions, in the heart, on the tongue, in the 
conduct, forms a stagnant pool from which 
vapors exhale and gather into clouds to 
obscure or extinguish the Spirit’s pure, 
holy, life-giving beams. In its light the 
soul runs and is not weary, walks and is 
not faint, nay, mounts up with wings as 
eagle’s. In the sin-gloom the soul gropes 
in the dark, feels its way slowly and pain¬ 
fully along, stumbles and strays, and, like 
Thomas, is unable to believe, and, like 
Peter, follows Jesus afar off and under 
temptation denies him. “ Quench not the 
Spirit.” One is lost in the woods in the 
thick dark night. Perils encompass him; 
pitfalls are at his feet; he cries out in his 
distress, and at his cry one brings a light 
to show him the path of life, and this man 
madly dashes the lantern from his benefac- 

13 


194 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


tor’s hand. Such is he who quenches the 
Spirit. 

The Spirit of God is a fire. Jesus bap¬ 
tizes “ with the Holy Ghost and with fire!' 
Matt. iii. u. “Ye shall receive power after 
that the Holy Ghost is come upon you!' said 
Jesus. Acts i. 8. And he came on that 
day when “ cloven tongues like as of fire" 
“sat upon each of them!' Acts ii. 3. The 
Holy Ghost is a fire in the human soul. 
He is God in man. He fills with enthusi¬ 
asm. Those believers in the times of Mal- 
achi speaking often one to another of the 
things of the kingdom, Jehovah listening 
while they spake; those early Christians 
who “had all things common, and sold 
their possessions and goods, and parted 
them to all men, as every man had need; 
and they, continuing daily with one accord 
in the temple, and breaking bread from 
house to house, did eat their meat with 
gladness and singleness- of heart, praising 
God, and having favor with all the people” 


noIV MAY THIS APPETITE BE MINEf. 19 $ 

(Acts ii. 44-47) ; Peter facing the multitude 
in Jerusalem and crying, “Ye men of Israel, 
hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man 
approved of God among you by miracles 
and wonders and signs, which God did by 
him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves 
also know: him, being delivered by the 
determinate counsel and foreknowledge of 
God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands 
have crucified and slain” (Acts ii. 22, 23); 
the apostles departing from their scourging 
before the Sanhedrim rejoicing that they 
were counted worthy to suffer shame for 
Jesus’ name (Acts v. 41) ; Paul writing, “I 
could wish that myself were accursed from 
Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen ac¬ 
cording to the flesh” (Rom. ix. 2),—were all 
enthusiasts. They were under the baptism 
of fire and the Holy Ghost. It is this fire 
of God that puts life into doctrine and 
Christ into the life. It is this heat from 
the Holy Ghost that enables the new man 
to digest the soul-food and assimilate it. 


196 FEEDING ON CHRIST. 

But this fire may be quenched; it may 
be put out. “It may be quenched,” writes 
Ellicott, “ by a studied repression and dis¬ 
regard of his manifestations, arising from 
erroneous perceptions and mistaken dread 
of enthusiasm.” A most pregnant hint. 
Many Christians are afraid of enthusiasm 
in others, and ashamed of it in themselves. 
They deprecate all excitement; they look 
with suspicion and half alarm upon revivals 
of religion. Men may be excited to mad¬ 
ness in the gold-room, in the political cam¬ 
paign, but calm, cool, dignified, well-bred 
propriety must characterize our religious 
acts and emotions. There is in every 
Christian community a certain level of 
spiritual experience beyond which the tim¬ 
id soul dare not go, the sluggish soul does 
not wish to go, the worldly soul will not go, 
and beyond which the general public feel¬ 
ing will not allow any one to go if it can 
help it; and this, too, while all feel and 
know and acknowledge that the common 


HOW MAY THIS APPETITE BE MINE? 197 

average of piety is miserably below what 
it ought to be and might be. Now, we 
grieve the Holy Ghost, we quench his 
light, we throw water on his fire, we bid 
him from us, when we consult human opin¬ 
ion rather than our own yearnings, as awa¬ 
kened by his influences, with respect to 
the heights toward which we will push in 
our pursuit of holiness, or as to the length 
we will go in our labors for Christ and for 
the souls of men. We grieve him, and 
he withdraws his gracious influences and 
leaves us to coldness and leanness and 
barrenness; leaves us to doubt and fear 
and miserable half-life in his kingdom. 
Grieve not the Spirit; quench not the 
Spirit; abstain from all appearance of evil ; 
and then we may look to him to sanctify 
us wholly , to preserve blameless our whole 
spirit and sold and body unto the coming 
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen and 
amen. 

5. Last, but not least, ask, beg, implore 


igS FEEDING ON CHRIST. 

Him who can give you this appetite to im¬ 
part to you this precious boon. 

He who created the soul anew, and thus 
laid the basis for the appetite for this divine 
food, is able so to stimulate the appetite that 
you too shall cry, “As the hartpanteth after 
the waterbrooks , so panteth my soul after thee , 
O God!' Ps. xlii. i. He heareth prayer—the 
prayer even of the thirsting gazelle in the 
hot plain; the prayer even of the young lion 
that seeks his meat from God; the prayer 
even of the young ravens which cry; and 
will he not much more hear you, “O ye of 
little faith”? Sing, then, in his ear— 

“ Early, my God, without delay, 

I haste to seek thy face; 

My thirsty spirit faints away 
Without thy cheering grace. 

“ I’ve seen thy glory and thy power 
Through all thy temple shine; 

My God, repeat that heavenly hour, 

That vision so divine. 


Not all the blessings of a feast 
Can please my soul so well 


THE JOY OF FEEDING ON CHRIST. 199 


As when thy richer grace I taste 
And in thy presence dwell. 

“ Not life itself, with all its joys, 

• Can my best passions move, 

Or raise so high my cheerful voice. 
As thy forgiving love. 

“ Thus till my last expiring day 
I’ll bless my God and King; 
Thus will I lift my hands to pray, 
And tune my lips to sing.” 


THE JOY OF FEEDING ON CHRIST. 

That feeding on Christ is attended with 
happiness is told us in the very first and— 
according to the style of the ancients—the 
most emphatic word of the beatitude. The 
word blessed literally means happy—Happy 
are they which do hunger and thirst after 
righteousness. And this first word, happy , 
is closely joined, through the intervening 
causal conjunction, with the last word, filled. 
Happy because they shall be filled, happy 
in the process of being filled, and happy in 



200 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


the result. Thus the beatitude is a paren¬ 
thesis, with happiness at each terminus. 
It is a celestial rainbow with golden joy at 
either end. 

So indeed it must be. A mighty hunger 
feeding on abundance—what room for aught 
but happiness ? What is the happiness of 
heaven but the filling of all the being with 
God ? Is there no real delight in eating 
when you are hungry and in drinking 
when you are thirsty ? Ask that famished 
gazelle if no delight goes with the cool 
water through its frame. Does no delight 
come to the gold-hunter when he finds a 
huge nugget of gold—no delight to the sci¬ 
entist when he comes upon a new grand 
truth? Yes; and there is soul-delight in 
feeding on Christ, becoming imbued with 
him, becoming like him. Ah, exclaimed the 
bride, “/ sat down under his shadow with 
great delight , and his fruit was sweet to my 
taste!' Cant. ii. 3. 

It is the highest possible human delight. 


THE JOY OF FEEDING ON CHRIST. 201 

There is delight in eating when you are hun¬ 
gry. There is delight in coffering the gold¬ 
en fruits of your toils. There is delight in 
the acquirement of knowledge. But these 
are beggarly compared with the delight of 
feeding the immortal nature on the bread 
of God, on righteousness. 

It is a perpetual delight. Were the ocean 
conscious of thirst, what never-ending en¬ 
joyment would be its portion in drinking 
and ever drinking up the Euphrates and 
the Ganges and the Amazon ! But Christ 
is the river that flows from the throne of 
God to satisfy the thirsts of the soul. No 
small enjoyment would be his who could 
hungrily feed all day at a sumptuous feast. 
Yet how groveling this enjoyment com¬ 
pared with that of feeding on Christ, and 
that for ever! 

It is also an ever-growing delight. Other 
food satiates—this sharpens the appetite 
while it satisfies. The more of Christ we 
take into our renewed natures the larger 


202 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


are our cravings; and this process goes on 
for ever. Blessed, then, ten thousand times 
blessed—happy, ten thousand times happy— 
are they which do hunger and thirst after 
righteousness, for they shall be filled—filled 
as Paul was filled when he wrote those Epis¬ 
tles, mentioning the name of Christ in them 
some six hundred times—five times in the 
first three verses of the letter to the Ephe¬ 
sians, writing it wherever he could find a 
place to put it in; filled as he was filled 
when he wrote to the Corinthians, “ I deter¬ 
mined not to know anything among you ”— 
anything of your towering Acrocorinthus, 
your gorgeous architecture, your statues 
and paintings—“ save Christ and him cruci¬ 
fied'" (i Cor. ii. 2), as when he wrote to 
the Philippians, “ For me to live is Christ.” 
It is as easy, and by God’s grace now as 
natural, for me to think of Christ, to speak 
of Christ, to act for Christ, to worship 
Christ, to glorify Christ, as it is to live and 
breathe. “And to die is gain”—not that I 


THE JOY OF FEEDING ON CHRIST. 203 

may escape from toil and sorrow; not even 
that I may take my harp and put on my 
crown; not even that I may mingle my 
songs with the ransomed on high; but that 
I may “be with Christ.” Phil. i. 21, 23. 
Filled with Christ, the soul is satisfied as 
with marrow and fatness. 

“ Thou, O Christ, art all I want; 

More than all in thee I find; 

Raise the fallen, cheer the faint, 

Heal the sick and lead the blind. 

Just and holy is thy name, 

I am all unrighteousness; 

False and full of sin I am, 

Thou art full of truth and grace. 

“ Plenteous grace with thee is found— 

Grace to cover all my sin; 

Let the healing streams abound, 

Make and keep me pure within; 

Thou of life the Fountain art, 

Freely let me take of thee: 

Spring thou up within my heart, 

Rise to all eternity.” 

“Be ye therefore perfect, even as your 
Father which is in heaven is perfect.” 
Matt. v. 48. 


204 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


“Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to 
be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto 
God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Rom. 
vi. ii. 

“As the hart panteth after the water- 
brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O 
God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the 
living God: when shall I come and appear 
before God?” Ps. xlii. i, 2. 

“ O God, thou art my God; early will I 
seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my 
flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty 
land, where no water is; to see thy power 
and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the 
sanctuary. My soul followeth hard after 
thee; thy right hand upholdeth me.” Ps. 
lxiii. 1-3. 

“ Oh send out thy light and thy truth: let 
them lead me; let them bring me unto thy 
holy hill, and to thy tabernacles. Then will 
I go unto the altar of God, unto God my 
exceeding joy; yea, upon the harp will I 
praise thee, O God my God.” Ps. xliii. 3, 4. 


THE JOY OF FEEDING ON CHRIST. 205 

“We all with open face, beholding as in 
a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed 
into the same image from glory to glory 
even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” 2 Cor. 
iii. 18. 

“ I will pour water upon him that is thirs¬ 
ty, and floods upon the dry ground. I will 
pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my bless¬ 
ing upon thine offspring, and they shall 
spring up as among the grass, as willows 
by the water-courses.” Isa. xliv. 4. 

“ But the Comforter, which is the Holy 
Ghost, whom the Father will send in my 
name, he shall teach you all things and 
bring all things to your remembrance 
whatsoever I have said unto you.” John 
xiv. 26. 

“Yea, doubtless, and I count all things 
but loss for the excellency of the know¬ 
ledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. Forget¬ 
ting those things which are behind, and 
reaching forth unto those things which are 
before, I press toward the mark for the 


206 FEEDING ON CHRIST. 

prize of the high calling of God in Christ 
Jesus.” Phil. iii. 8, 13, 14. 

“ That ye, being rooted and grounded in 
love, may be able to comprehend with all 
saints what is the breadth and length and 
depth and height, and to know the love of 
Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye 
might be filled with all the fullness of 
God.” Eph. iii. 17-19. 

“The very God of peace sanctify you 
wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit, 
and soul, and body, be preserved blameless 
unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
Faithful is He that calleth you, who also will 
do it.” 1 Thess. v. 23, 24. 

“ My soul shall be satisfied as with mar¬ 
row and fatness, and my mouth shall praise 
thee with joyful lips, when I remember thee 
upon my bed and meditate on thee in the 
night-watches.” Ps. lxiii. 5, 6. 

“Thine eyes shall see the King in his 
beauty.” Isa. xxxiii. 17. 

“The Bread of God is He which cometh 


THE JOY OF FEEDING ON CHRIST. 20J 

down from heaven, and giveth life unto 
the world. I am the bread of life: he that 
cometh to me shall never hunger; and he 
that believeth on me shall never thirst. 
This is the bread which cometh down 
from heaven, that a man may eat there¬ 
of, and not die.” John vi. 33, 35, 50. 

“ I am the living bread which came down 
from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, 
he shall live for ever: and the bread that I 
will give is my flesh, which I will give for 
the life of the world. Verily, verily, I say 
unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son 
of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life 
in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drink- 
eth my blood, hath eternal life, and I will 
raise him up at the last day. For my flesh 
is meat indeed, and my blood is drink in¬ 
deed. He that eateth my flesh, and drink- 
eth my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. 
As the living Father hath sent me, and I 
live by the Father, so he that eateth me 
even he shall live by me. This is that 


208 


FEEDING ON CHRIST. 


bread which came down from heaven : not 
as your fathers did eat manna, and are 
dead: he that eateth of this bread shall 
live for ever.” John vi. 51, 53-58. 

“ Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are 
true, whatsoever things are honest, whatso¬ 
ever things are just, whatsoever things are 
pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatso¬ 
ever things are of good report; if there be 
any virtue, and if there be any praise, think 
on these things.” Phil. iv. 8. 

“ Blessed are they which do Hunger 
and Thirst after Righteousness; for 

THEY SHALL BE FlLLED.” 


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